Pennsylvania Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer Blog

We all want to believe that extra care and respect is shown toward the elderly in our communities, as they are among the most vulnerable of our population. To ensure this, a pilot-program launched in Philadelphia in 2012 has taken steps to guard against people who might be inclined to take advantage of those on social security.

According to an article on Philly.com, the pilot program did background checks on those known as “representative payees” — a person who collects social security disability benefits for those who aren’t able to handle their own finances. If it was found that the representative payee had committed one of 12 crimes, including robbery, forgery, or identity theft, they were rejected as a representative of the individual seeking benefits.

In order to make the determination, the Social Security employees would access public records, or third-party databases. They would not have access to the FBI’s criminal database. The Social Security Administration feels the pilot-program has been a success, as screeners have flagged less than 1 percent of the 34,850 applicants.

Friendship Ridge, the county-owned nursing home in Beaver County, is eliminating over 100 jobs after a contract was approved last month by employees.

According to an article on BizJournals.com, the positions being cut include registered nurses and restorative nurses. Positions in maintenance, dietary, the hair salon, and recreation specialists will also be cut.

Comprehensive Healthcare Management Services LLC, a company out of Lawrence, NY, is purchasing the facility from Beaver County. The jobs were sacrificed in order to reach a contract with the new owners. The union that represents many of Friendship Ridge’s workers, SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania, expressed their concern about the loss of jobs. In the article, they are quoted as saying, “While we were pleased to achieve a contract with the new owners that protects family-sustaining jobs, the elimination of so many positions is upsetting and unsettling. We have spent the last year advocating for our residents and working to make sure that they would continue to receive the high quality care and service they have always known.”

The coroner is investigating the death of a resident that took place on Saturday at the Golden Living Center in Waynesburg, just outside of Pittsburgh. According to an article on TheRepublic.com, the woman’s neck became stuck between the mattress and the bed rail.

The coroner has ruled the death “accidental asphyxiation” according to the article. So far, the nursing home has not responded when asked when staff last checked on the resident. There’s been no response to questions about how often staff check on residents at night. But the home has offered its condolences to the resident’s family.

According to the article, Golden Living was last inspected by the Pennsylvania Health Department on March 1, 2013. In the last 30 months, the home had 16 “minimal harm” deficiencies, which is fewer than the state average.

A recent article on TribLive.com highlights the urgent need for more nursing homes bed as the population in Pennsylvania ages. The reason? There’s simply not enough beds available to accommodate the estimate of seniors who will need them.

In the article, an administrator for Lakeview Personal Care Home in Beaver County explained, “The problem is that the cost is exhorbitant in many communities.” So to try and head off problem, the state has been funding services that will allow more seniors to stay in their own homes longer.

The programs include services such as transportation to appointments for seniors, as well as delivery of meals to homebound seniors. Funding comes from the Pennsylvania Lottery, which $50 million and state budgets, which provide $18 million.

When we make the difficult decision to place our loved one in a skilled nursing facility, we want to ensure that they will be looked after and cared for by professional health care workers. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Take for example a story from Scranton on TheTimes-Tribune.com.

A nursing home employee at Angel’s Family Manor in Scranton was just arrested for stealing pain pills from the home and stealing money from another employee. According to the article, the employee was in charge of distributing medicine to the residents. She was found to have taken $2,000 from another employee. She was also found to have in her possession an envelope containing pills taken from Angel’s Family Manor. The employee is now in Lackawanna County Prison in lieu of $7,500 bail.

A New Jersey family struck a win for the rights of nursing home residents who are hard of hearing.

According to an article on BurlingtonCountyTimes.com, Medford Care Center in Medford, NJ will now provide a sign-language interpreter for those residents who are deaf or hard of hearing.

In 2012, the family of a deaf patient filed a complaint against the center, alleging that the woman was not made aware of medical procedures because of the lack of adequate communication. The the complaint, the family said the center provided a sign-language interpreter for only two conferences with doctors. At other times, the center communicated with the woman through her son, by way of written notes, or by lip reading.

Schuylkill County finance officials are taking a closer look at the county’s nursing home, Rest Haven, as costs are becoming too expensive to continue to operate the home, according to an article on the RepublicanHerald.com.

County contributions have been increasing over the past few years and as a result the county finance director said they have been watching things carefully.

One factor they are considering is that for the last six years, Rest Haven has not been operating at full capacity, according to the article. In December 2013, 135 of the 142 beds at the facility were filled. That was 14 more beds that were filled than had been for the previous 2 years.

Seniors in the western Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh area are getting to know first-hand the benefits of telemedicine through the use of health-monitoring devices that look like a regular sports watch.

An article on CNBC.com explains that Lutheran SeniorLife is a faith-based, nonprofit organization in Pennsylvania that runs senior living communities. About 2 years ago, they started to use a system called the MobileCare Monitor with the more frail residents of their senior living communities. If the resident falls, the monitor sends a text message to the smartphone of a nurse’s aide as well as sending an alert to a Web-based system called a CareStation. Within the first day of use, the monitor alerted a nurse that a resident who was recently moved from a nursing home to a low-income senior housing center had fallen out of bed.

Since using the monitoring system, the percent of residents that Lutheran SeniorLife has had to move into nursing homes has been reduced from 20 percent to 12 percent. According to the article, about 40 of the 500 residents who are enrolled in the program use the monitoring device so that they can stay out of the nursing home. Although there are charges associated with using the monitor, Lutheran SeniorLife administrators say the costs are much less than having to move someone into a nursing home.

A bedbug infestation was discovered last week at the Liberty Nursing and Rehabilitation Home in Allentown. But by the week’s end, work to clean up the problem was scheduled to be finished, according to an article on McCall.com.

When the issue came to light, an exterminator was called in and residents and their families were notified of the situation. Every room in the nursing facility was inspected for bedbugs. If a mattress was found to be infested, the bedding was thrown out. Residents in affected rooms were temporarily moved until their room was treated and dried.

According to the article, online Department of Health records indicated that the last inspection was on Oct. 3 and the facility passed. But bedbug infestations are not reportable to the state. Nursing homes should have pest control policies in place and the state will check for effectiveness when they visit again.