Illinois Family Sues Nursing Home Alleging Lack of Care Due to Bleeding Incident
The family of a 66-year-old resident in an Illinois nursing home has filed a lawsuit after the man, who was recovering from a seemingly successful kidney transplant, died as a result of a hemorrhage in his forearm. The resident’s physician had ordered that he be monitored every two hours and that staff also frequently check his forearm. The resident had developed a fistula from a dialysis catheter that required frequent monitoring due to the risk for hemorrhage.
Staff told the police, who were called in to investigate, that they had been monitoring the resident as ordered; however, when the video camera outside the resident’s room was viewed, it showed that no one had entered the resident’s room for at least three hours before he was found in his bathroom in a pool of blood.
Additionally, the family discovered that the resident’s cell phone was missing from the room shortly after his death. A family member reported that she tracked the phone with the “Find My iPhone” app as it left the facility until it was inactivated. The lawsuit claims the phone was stolen by a nursing home staff member with an active arrest warrant in Iowa for theft, dependent adult abuse, and forgery.
The lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of the resident’s spouse and children, names the nursing home and several staff members. The suit seeks monetary damages for 17 alleged detailed failures by the nursing home to provide the care needed by the resident.
Compliance Perspective
Failure to monitor residents according to physician’s orders, especially at a severity level that can lead to an avoidable death, and theft of residents’ personal property by an employee who has active arrest warrants for serious infractions may be considered abuse, neglect, and misappropriation, and may be deemed provision of substandard quality of care, in violation of state and federal regulations.
Discussion Points:
- Review policies and procedures designed to ensure that physicians’ orders for monitoring residents are followed, including awareness for closely monitoring residents with life-threatening risk factors. Determine that policies and procedures requiring background checks of employees include checking state/national databases for outstanding warrants.
- Train staff regarding the importance of following physicians’ orders for monitoring residents, to include an emphasis on residents with potential life-threatening issues.
- Periodically audit physicians’ orders to determine if staff are following those orders and giving adequate attention to residents with high risk factors for potentially life-threatening events.
