Nursing Home Neglect
Dedicated Trial Lawyers Protecting the Injured and Their Families
Nursing homes often fail to have enough nurses, nurses aids and assistants. When this happens, the nursing home staff cannot properly care for our loved ones. Although falls, abuse, and failure to feed nursing home residents are common problems, the Number 1 preventable nursing home injury is pressure ulcer which are also known as bedsores or decubitus ulcers. By definition, a bedsore is a pressure ulcer. Relieve the pressure and there is no ulcer. Prolonged pressure is the direct result of poor nursing care because the prevention of pressure ulcers is as simple as frequent turning of the patient and meticulous skin care. The key word here is "care". Although not all pressure ulcers are the result of poor care, pressure ulcers that go beyond a Stage I may be due to failure to take simple steps to care for existing pressure ulcers and to prevent additional pressure ulcers/bedsores.
To show that they provided the best of care, the hospital or nursing home must prove, by documentation in the patient’s records, that they consistently provided the following services:
- Turning and repositioning every 2 hours;
- Maintaining adequate nutrition;
- Maintaining adequate hydration;
- Providing a pressure relieving mattress (Clinitron or KCI)
- Keeping the skin clean and dry;
- Immediately cleaning up urine and/or feces when patient is incontinent;
- Examining the skin for breaks in integrity at least every 8 hours.
- Assessing, with the aid of the Braden Scale, the patient's for risk for pressure ulcers.
While it is true that some patients present a greater challenge in pressure ulcer prevention, nurses have a duty to adopt a policy of zero tolerance for bedsores. This requires an aggressive team approach with a strong commitment on the part of the administration to provide the Clinitron or KCI bed as needed and also demand a meticulous schedule of turning the patient every two hours. Once the patient is identified as a risk, by use of the Braden scale assessment tool, all of the above services must be employed. When a person ends up with a reeking necrotic tissue crater large enough to accommodate a human fist says this was unfortunate, but unavoidable, it simply is not the truth. The very presence of such a situation, in itself, demonstrates that there was a progressive deterioration arising out of neglect.
It is well known that ten percent of all hospitalized patients in the United States and thirteen percent of all nursing home residents develop pressure ulcers. The risk factors are identifiable, and there are standard measures for the prevention and care of early stages of skin breakdown. Every person who must depend on nursing care for survival has a right to expect the institution to provide all of the necessary interventions for prevention of pressure ulcers. If the people who manage hospitals and nursing homes are willing to make excuses in court and say, "We gave the best of care, so the ulcerations were unfortunate but unavoidable," they are obliged to disclose to the public that they will not be able to prevent pressure ulcers in a certain percentage of their patients or residents. Every hospital and nursing facility is required by law to keep records of their pressure ulcer incidents and report them to health authorities
Nursing Home Neglect Information
- Bedsores, Pressure Sores, Decubitus Ulcers
- Nursing Home Physical Abuse
- Nursing Home Sexual Abuse
