Six nursing homes have been fined for standard of care violations causing injury to patients. Incidents causing injuries include failure to continue CPR on a patient until EMS arrived, failure to provide fluids to prevent dehydration, failure to acquire assistance when turning and repositioning a patient, and transferring patients. Resulting injuries included death, skin tears, fractures, dehydration, and kidney injuries. The fines for the facilities ranged from $1,630 to $3,000.

Survey research points to 1 in 3 people believe elderly are experiencing “widespread” abuse. The most often reported abuse is physical, followed by psychological and lastly sexual, for vulnerable adults ages 18-64. Those aged 65 and older report in order physical, then psychological, followed by financial abuse.

Nursing homes are being penalized for pushing nursing home patients out of their facilities when Medicare funding ran out. One nursing home was attempting to place patients in homeless shelters or less adequate care providers without licenses for their facilities. The nursing home was looking to increase funding by admitting new patients with Medicare coverage. Because of these actions, the federal and state agencies that informed the nursing home facility that they would be dropped from an…

A 92-year-old patient was discharged from the hospital after a left hip fracture surgery on June 8, 2013 and admitted to the nursing home for therapy. The patient was receiving Lovenox and Coumadin daily, with Admission Orders to the nursing home to maintain INR in the 2-3 range and to check her PT/INR daily until discontinued. The patient was identified as being “at risk for bleeding/bruising/abnormal labs” related to the Coumadin and Lovenox.

A potentially life-threatening form of pneumonia caused by Legionella bacteria, called Legionnaire's disease grows in water systems where water is stored. The spread of this bacteria in nursing homes and hospitals can be prevented, however, precautions must be taken to do so. Water systems have been tested and the bacteria has been identified in numerous nursing homes and hospitals causing concerns regarding the potential for an outbreak. “We know if those facilities have an effect…

Among many types of nursing home neglect are medication errors. These errors involved various types of drugs, including blood thinners such as Warfarin and Coumadin. Studies have identified the danger in these drugs, however, they often leave out the issue of human error when dispensing them.One medical journal identified 34,000 fatalities per year from these drugs, however, medication errors were not factored in to the cause.