Delayed Treatment

When a nursing home or assisted living facility resident experiences a change in condition, suffers a fall with a suspected injury, experiences trauma, or suffers from a medical event, it is incumbent upon the facility to transfer the resident to a higher level of care, without delay. However, facilities often fail to transfer residents to a higher care setting, like a hospital, when the circumstances require them to do so. This is typically caused by a failure to monitor and/or supervise the resident, a failure to recognize a change in the resident’s condition, a failure to properly assess the resident (including an appropriate post-fall assessment), a failure to notify the resident’s physician of an occurrence, a failure to timely comply with physician orders, inadequate staffing, inadequate staff training, incompetent staff, or even a desire to retain the revenue associated with wrongfully keeping a resident in house rather than making an appropriate transfer.

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Delayed transfers increase the potential for dire resident outcomes and, in many instances, cause unnecessary pain and suffering. Consider a nursing home resident who suffers from dementia who is found lying on the floor in her room. She is unable to state what happened, whether she is in any pain, or the location of pain, if any. Facility staff might place the resident back in her bed without documenting the fall, conducting a post-fall assessment, notifying her physician, notifying her family, and without discovering that the resident fractured her hip. In this hypothetical scenario, the resident may be left to sit for days in agonizing pain without appropriate care and treatment as the condition, and the associated pain worsens. The resident is left to suffer in silence. This is unacceptable.

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If you believe your loved one was injured at a nursing home or assisted living facility, contact the experienced attorneys at FIDJ, before it's too late.

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*The information contained herein is not, and must not be construed as medical advice.