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Medication errors in nursing homes are recognized as a common problem, and inspectors for the state will specifically analyze the rate of mistakes when grading a facility on its care.

All nursing homes are required by law to maintain a medication error rate of less than 5 percent, and there must not be any severe medication errors.

Still, problems continue to arise. Sometimes, the doctor fails to write the correct medication or to ensure new medications won’t negatively interact with existing prescriptions. Other times, pharmacies improperly fill the medication. Often, mistakes occur in administration of the drugs, in contradiction to the orders of doctor, pharmacy and drug manufacturer.

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Many nursing home residents are unable to walk or unable to walk any significant differences. Often, they use wheelchairs and require assistance to perform basic tasks, such as going to the restroom, bathing and getting in and out of bed. 

Although there are accepted industry protocols for the best and safest way to move patients, these procedures aren’t always followed. When facilities are understaffed, caregivers are often inexperienced, rushed or simply careless when it comes to moving patients. This results in nursing home patients being dropped, most often during routine transfers.

When a nursing home resident is dropped, it can lead to serious health complications, including:

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Admission to nursing homes in Florida is increasingly coming at a great cost, not just to residents’ bank accounts, but also to their rights. 

Many new admissions or their family members are being “asked” to sign mandatory arbitration agreements, typically included in the mounds of other necessary paperwork completed before a care agreement is reached.

Mandatory arbitration agreements are legal contracts in which patients and/or their loved ones agree any dispute or disagreement related to care will be raised before an arbitrator, rather than in civil court before a judge. The process is typically advantageous for nursing homes because rulings are mostly in their favor and even when damages are awarded, the amount is typically far less.

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It started with a broken finger. It’s not clear how the elderly woman’s finger came to be broken, but it was clearly not treated properly.

As a resident of a state-run nursing home providing around-the-clock care, that was the one thing she should have been able to count on.

But when she was taken to an orthopedic surgeon some five days after the fracture occurred, the doctor noted the bandage was tightly wrapped with 4 to 5 bandages. No fingers were exposed, and the wrapping was so tight, the doctor would later say, “Only God could have removed it.”

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A series of nursing home falls suffered by a patient in Minnesota foreshadowed a final, fatal fall from a wheelchair for an elderly resident last year.

Now, that nursing home, located in Duluth, has been cited for neglect.

According to news reports, the state health department alleges the center failed in its duty to comprehensively assess the high risk for falls posed to this resident, and further to reassess the risks after each incident. In fact, a state investigator found this particular patient fell 10 times between July 2014 and November 2014. Three of those falls occurred within days of each other – Nov. 17, Nov. 22 and again, finally, in Nov. 24. That last fall resulted in the resident’s death.

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Four nursing home workers have been arrested and the state attorney general in New York is continuing to investigate allegations the facility actively concealed abuse and neglect of vulnerable residents.

In all, there are 45 crimes listed in the indictment among the four workers, including:

  • willful violation of health laws
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It’s been four years since a Miami Herald investigation revealed systemic problems leading to abuse, neglect and death of residents at some of the state’s more than 3,000 assisted living facilities, which serve approximately 86,00 elderly patients.

That investigation prompted Florida Sen. Eleanor Sobel, D-Hollywood, to draft bill after bill to address lapses in state oversight and enforcement of laws to protect these residents. Each year, the measure failed.

Until now.

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The attorney general’s office in New Mexico has sued one of the country’s largest nursing home chains over allegations of inadequate resident care. The lawsuit asserts ultra-thin staffing levels made it a numeric impossibility for staffers to provide appropriate care to elderly and disabled patients.

Preferred Care Partners Management Group L.P., which operates in 10 states, including Florida, has staunchly denied the allegations made in the lawsuit.

Other states are carefully monitoring the developments of this case because it’s a novel approach to a pervasive and serious problem nationwide. Many nursing homes – primarily for-profit centers – give patient care a back seat to profit margins. They skimp on supplies, security tools and, most importantly, qualified staff.

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More and more, people are learning that nursing homes are exploiting elderly residents and their loved ones through the process of forced arbitration clauses. Basically, these agreements require residents or their loved ones to sign away their right to sue in the event of negligent caregiving.

Instead, the only avenue most people have is through a privatized arbitration forum. Too often, these processes are biased and usually result in lesser awards for victims.

Although many long-term care facilities don’t actually require patients to sign these agreements as a term of admission, they won’t disclose this to patients either. And some places actually do require it, leaving family to wrestle with the impossible choice of signing away important rights or placing their loved one in a less desired facility or one farther away from family.

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A 78-year-old former lawmaker in Iowa has been acquitted of criminal charges after it was alleged he had sexual contact with his wife, an Alzheimer’s patient residing at a nursing home. At issue was the prosecution’s contention that the woman lacked the capacity to consent to sexual contact.

Defendant had reportedly been informed by staffers to “limit sexual contact” with his wife of seven years, but it was a minute-long instruction that was part of an hour-long discussion, and he would later say he believed that to mean he was advised against having sexual intercourse with his wife for medical reasons. It was his contention that his wife initiated the sexual contact after that, and he assumed that this meant she was consenting. However, no one actually witnessed the act or could verify the exact nature of it.

These kinds of discussions are uncomfortable for family members and loved ones whose elder relatives and spouses remain in the care of a nursing home facility. The fact is, people don’t lose their desire for love and human affection when they are diagnosed with dementia. They shouldn’t be denied those things if it involves consenting adults. But the degree to which people with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease or other conditions can consent is a major question that many families and even nursing homes are grappling with.

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