Pennsylvania Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer Blog

Our local paper, the Republican Herald, published an article on Saturday about the need for Pennsylvania state law to become tougher on the problem of elder abuse.

According to the article, representatives from the Schuylkill Elder Abuse Prevention Alliance (SEAPA) pleaded with local legislators on Friday to improve state laws to give prosecutors more tools to deal with elder abuse, particularly financial abuse.

The article quoted county Detective Dorothy Malec as saying, "We need...and I'm begging you...we need to have some of the things in the crime code changed to be more specific regarding power of attorney abuse. A power of attorney is not a license to steal."

SEAPA suggested an upgrade to the definition of "Financial Exploitation" in the Pennsylvania Crimes Code to read, "A person who recklessly, knowingly or intentionally deprives an older adult of the proceeds of the older adult's benefits under the Social Security Act or other retirement program meant for the older adult's health care commits a felony of the second degree."

Schuylkill County Commissioners Chairwoman Mantura M. Gallagher is quoted in the article as saying, "We'd love to see the Legislature somehow give prosecutors the tools to process these cases at a quicker rate. There are so many stumbling blocks. If the state would have something in place that would be able to assist us with the hiring of forensice accountants so we could move faster on a case, that would be great."

In the works is House Bill 92, that would allow are agencies on aging to have the authority to investigate cases in which elder abuse and power of attorney were involved.

Continue reading "The Fight to Protect Seniors in Schuylkill County" »

It's a family's worst nightmare: finding out that an elderly loved one is being abused and mistreated in a skilled nursing facility. This nightmare became a reality for the family of an elderly dementia patient being cared for at the Quadrangle Sunrise Senior Living in Haverford, Pennsylvania.

Three care workers have been arrested and charged with aggravated assault, simple assault, criminal conspiracy, harassment, neglect of a care-dependent person and other related crimes.

When the elderly woman questioned her family as to why workers at the Quadrangle seemed to be taunting her, the family installed a hiddle camera. The care workers are accused of allegedly taunting ahd physically abusing the dementia patient. Officials from the state's Department of Wlefare, which oversees licensing and inspections of personal care homes, is also conducting an investigation in the facility.

Continue reading "Hidden Camera Catches Abuse at Pennsylvania Nursing Home" »

A new study shows that litigation, or the threat of litigation, does not lead to improvements in care at nursing homes. In fact, researchers have reported that high-quality nursing homes face lawsuits often as much as those considered to be low-quality nursing homes.

The study was published March 31 in the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers find the results disappointing, since one objective of litigation, other than compensating victims of medical malpractice, is to encourage higher quality care.

One of the study's co-authors, David Stevenson, is quoted in U.S. News and World Reports as saying, "The results are sobering. One of the fundamental things that the risk of a malpractice claim is supposed to spur is deterring poor quality care. What we found was that the return on being a high-quality facility relative to a low-quality facility isn't great."

Researchers reviewed data from lawsuits brought against five large U.S. nursing home chains between 1998 and 2006, looking at the reasons for the suits. During that period, 4,716 claims were filed against 1,465 nursing homes. On average, each nursing home was sued once every two years.

The data revealed that 61 percent of the claims resulted in a payment. The payments averaged almost $200,000.

The most common injuries were fall-related injuries at 27 percent, followed by pressure ulcers or bedsore at 16 percent. Other claims included dehydration, malnutrition and excessive weight loss, physical or verbal abuse, and medication errors.

Nursing home with the best records had a 40 percent risk of being sued, compared to the worst 10 percent of nursing homes, that had a 47 percent chance of being sued.

Those facilities that had the most nurse's aide hours per resident-day were 45 percent as likely to be sued as facilities with the lowest staffing levels, which averaged 41 percent annually.

The most significant difference in the likelihood of lawsuits was the measure of pressure ulcers or bedsores. Nursing homes with the lowest pressure ulcer rates had a 6 percent chance of being sued in a given year because of bedsore-related complaints compared to 11 percent for the worst-performing nursing homes.

Continue reading "Are Lawsuits Improving Nursing Home Care?" »