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“Doctors see a pressing need for new approaches to keep aging patients as healthy as possible and living independently as long as possible. This new approach comes at a time of unprecedented decline in the number of geriatricians practicing in the USA.”
Click HERE to read the entire New York Times article.
“In a front page story on Christmas Eve in the Raleigh News & Observer titled: Nursing-Home Records Closed Off; Bush Administration Changes are Sharply Criticized by Patient Advocates” attention was brought to recent changes in federal rules that prevent or severely hinder access to patient information.”
Click HERE to read the entire News & Observer article, including statements by HensonFuerst’s Anne Duvoisin
An 87-year old woman was found dead on the ground beside a loading dock at a Concord, North Carolina, nursing home, one ranked by Medicare as among the worst in the country.
Click HERE to read the complete story from WNCN.com
The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released the ratings for individual homes online this morning. They included ratings for 32 nursing homes in Wake, Durham, Orange, Chatham and Johnston counties. The ratings were based on health inspections, staffing and various quality measures. The poor ratings reflected such factors as high staff turnover, patients with bedsores, use of restraints and unrelieved pain.
Click HERE to read this Raleigh News & Observer article.
More than one in four North Carolina nursing homes will be judged “much below average” under a federal consumer system. Please watch our blog for updates on this developing story.
Click HERE to read the complete Raleigh News & Observer front page news story, as well as the Federal Nursing Home Ratings Guide.
“No patient wants to be cared for by a sleep-deprived resident who has put in a brutal 30-hour shift within an 80-hour workweek. There is just too much chance that that the sleep-deprived doctor’s foggy mind or clumsy coordination would cause dangerous medical errors.”
Click HERE to read the full New York Times editorial
From Anne Duvoisin, Attorney/Partner, HensonFuerst Nursing Home
Practice: “45 CFR Part 2, “Testimony by Employees and the Production of Documents in Proceedings Where the United States Is Not a Party,” passed without comment by the Bush administration in its waning hours, will substantially and adversely impact nursing home residents and those that advocate on their behalf. It is hoped that a new administration will undo this regulation, which will prevent lawyers from taking the depositions of surveyors and make access to surveyors’ notes very difficult if not impossible to achieve. Often, the only way what happens to a resident is discovered, is through state investigation. Now, the results of those investigations will be much more difficult to obtain and may in many instances be unobtainable.”
Click HERE to read and review 45 CFR Part 2, “Testimony by Employees and the Production of Documents in Proceedings Where the United States Is Not a Party.”
“In a recent federal government study on the quality of care in nursing homes, 91% of all nursing homes were cited for deficient care between 2005 and 2007– the most recent years for which final data is available. Not surprisingly, deficiencies were greater in number at for-profit homes than at those operating as non-profit institutions.”
Click HERE to read and review the U. S. Health and Human Services memorandum report, “Trends in Nursing Home Deficiencies and Complaints”
December 11, 2008
Two men lost their lives in a recent North Carolina car accident involving one car, according to the Winston-Salem Journal.
The driver of the vehicle lost control of the car, crossed the center line, and hit a nearby boulder. The car went airborne, flipped several times and landed in the lake.
Authorities said that the driver was speeding before the North Carolina auto accident occurred.
The North Carolina car accident was not reported until several hours after it happened.
The North Carolina car accident attorneys at HensonFuerst can help if you have been injured in an auto accident.
“Pressure ulcers are increasingly common in U.S. hospitalizations. In 2006, there were 503,300 hospital stays during which pressure ulcers were noted—a 78.9 percent increase from 1993 when there were about 281,300 hospital stays related to pressure ulcers. During this same time period, the total number of hospitalizations increased by only 15 percent. Stays with a secondary diagnosis of pressure ulcers increased by 86.4 percent during this period, while stays principally for pressure ulcers increased by 27.2 percent.
Adult hospital stays noting a diagnosis of pressure ulcers totaled $11.0 billion in 2006.”
Click HERE for Statistical Brief # 64 from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.