Maryland Injury and Disability Law : Washington DC Metro Injury & Disability Lawyer & Attorney : Greenberg & Bederman : Accidents, Falls, Medical Malpractice : Maryland, DC, Virginia

Nursing Home Abuse – Are Surveillance Cameras the Answer?

As our elderly loved ones age, it becomes an increasing priority to care for them and their health. If affordable, nursing home care can be an option to care for our elders. In fact, an article in the Elder Law Journal states that approximately half of Americans over age 65 will be admitted to a nursing home in their lifetime, and projects such numbers to increase in the future. Although we would much rather be by our loved one’s side caring for them, often this is not a possibility. Paying someone else to care for them on a full- time basis should be the next best thing.

Although many nursing homes provide exceptional care for residents, sometimes the staff members allow patient’s needs to suffer. This is a problem affecting many nursing homes throughout the country. There is a wide range of estimates regarding instances of neglect and deficiency in such homes. An estimate at the low end of the scale finds that approximately 30% of the nursing homes nationwide have such severe deficiencies to warrant the implementation of sanctions. Additionally, a study by the Florida Agency of Health Care Administration has reported that about one out of 20 nursing home patients will experience some sort of abuse while in the facility.

In New York, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has decided to use hidden cameras (often dubbed “granny cams”) in nursing homes to help reduce the incidences of such abuse, and aid in prosecution when it does occur. The way this procedure works in New York is that the hidden cameras are placed in the rooms of residents with the knowledge and permission of the residents and their families. The nursing home staff, however, will remain uninformed. The video cameras have the additional capability to be monitored in real time. The reasoning for not telling the nursing home staff is that the nursing home abuse will not be captured if the staff knows they are being watched. This camera monitoring system has already proven useful, and has been used by the attorney general’s office in the prosecution of four cases, which resulted in 26 convictions.
 

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The year is drawing to a close and soon it will be 2009. Looking ahead to the future, what changes can a Social Security Income recipient expect? The answer is an increase monthly maximum amount.

The new monthly maximum for an individual receiving SSI will rise to $674.00. An eligible individual and eligible spouse will receive a monthly maximum benefit of $1011.00. Yes, it’s still woefully inadequate but the amount is headed in the right direction.

TO learn more about Social Security issues, please click on social security maryland.  To learn more about our social security lawyers, please click on about our firm, and read about Dory Sutker, or Suja Varghese.

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Breast Cancer Awareness: Is it Possible to be Over-aware?

Breast cancer awareness month has just passed. The importance of regular mammograms for cancer prevention is one of the mottos of this battle for cancer screening. Most cancer is treatable if it is caught early enough in the process. The stories related to this terrible disease are very tragic, and stress the importance of early detection. We've all heard or known about someone who was too afraid to go to the doctor until it was too late. This illustration has been talked about many times in cancer prevention month.  A woman too afraid to go to the doctor delays getting treatment, thinking she could walk-off the lump in her breast until she fell so sick that she finally had to see her health professional. Once at her doctor’s office the woman learns that she has breast cancer, which by now has spread throughout her body. Her chance of survival is low now, and it is dependent upon the success of a rigorous course of surgeries and chemotherapy treatments. The worst part of this story is that the woman would have had a 100% chance of survival if she had come in when she first noticed a problem.

And that story is only the beginning. There are a plethora of tragic stories related to this disastrous illness, such as the woman from Sydney, Australia who recently was awarded a mere $400,000 after a breast cancer misdiagnosis. The woman went to her doctor for an annual mammogram. A lump showed up in the mammogram, but she was reassured by her doctors that it was benign and nothing to worry about, only to later find out that the lump had been cancer, which by that point, had metastasized to her lungs and her brain. These stories are incredibly tragic, and hopefully, breast cancer awareness campaigns, such as breast cancer awareness month, will reduce the incidence of such horrible occurrences in the future.
Regular mammograms are widely heralded as the key in breast cancer awareness. But how reliable is this technology?
 

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To learn more about social security law, please read social security frequently asked questions on our website.  To learn more about our social security lawyers, please read about our firm and read about Dory Sutker or Suja Varghese.

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Hospital Acquired Infections

                The Center’s for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 5 -10% of hospitalized patients develop an infection related to healthcare association (HAI).  This corresponds to approximately 2 million HAI’s associated with nearly 100,000 deaths each year in US Hospital.  Studies have shown that patients requiring intensive care are at much higher risk. Most infections that become clinically evident after 48 hours of admission are considered hospital acquired.  Sadly, many of these could have been prevented by implementing practices that would have prevented the infections.  Recent measures put into effect in some hospitals focused on HAI prevention into regulatory and financial reimbursement systems, which reflect the growing belief that many HAIs are preventable, possibly thru the implementation of evidence based “best practices.”

                There are three different risk factors for the invasion of bacteria, which can be categorized into three different areas: 

·         Iatrogenic – These include bacteria transmitted from the hands of hospital personnel, antibiotic use, prophylaxis and invasive procedures sure as tube intubation, vascular lines, extended ventilation and urine catheterization.

·         Organizational - This includes environmental situations such as contaminated ventilation systems and water systems and staffing and physical layout of facilities, for example bed to patient ratio and nurse to patient ratio.

·         Prophylaxis – This includes issues such as length of stay, underlying immune-compromised state and severity of illness.

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