Resident falls from bed at Spring Creek

IDPH has cited and fined Spring Creek nursing home in Joliet after a resident there suffered a fractured femur in a fall from bed.

Care planning is one of the fundamental building blocks for the delivery of care in a nursing home setting.  In the care planning process, the resident’s needs are assessed, a series of steps or interventions are set out in the care plan to help assure the safety and well-being of the resident, and those steps are supposed to be carried out on a day-to-day, shift-to-shift basis.  When the staff fails to follow the care plan, that sets the stage for disaster to strike.

This resident was assessed as needing the assist of two for bed mobility, which means turning from side to side and moving in bed.  This is something that often needs to be done in connection with incontinence care and for turning and repositioning to prevent bed sores.  The reason that she was assessed as needing the assist of two is because she had cognitive impairments, musculoskeletal weakness, and was a larger person which would make it harder to a single person to safely control her while moving her in bed. When a person is designated as assist of two with bed mobility one staff member should be positioned on either side of the bed to help ensure that the resident doesn’t roll out of bed.

On the day of the accident, a single aide was providing incontinence care to the resident.  In doing so the resident was turned onto her side.  As the aide was cleaning the resident, she reached for her purse which was on a bedside table. Once she did that, the resident began to roll over away from the aide and over the side of the bed.  The aide was able to slow her fall by grabbing at her shirt, but the resident’s legs still went over the side of the bed and the resident suffered a fractured femur.

Proof of neglect on the part of the nursing home should be easy to come by: the care plan called for the assist of two, but only one a single aide was caring for the resident when the incident occurred.  The point that we would drive home here is: on days when the care plan was followed, there was no injury to the resident; one days when it was violated, a nursing home fall occurred and the resident suffered a broken leg.

Of course, the larger question would be, why was the aide going it alone?  The answer to that question likely lies in understaffing of the nursing home which is a feature of how nursing homes are operated.  One of our core beliefs is that nursing homes are built to fail due to the business model they follow and that unnecessary accidental injuries and wrongful deaths of nursing home residents are the inevitable result.  Order our FREE report, Built to Fail, to learn more about why.  Our experienced Chicago nursing home lawyers are ready to help you understand what happened, why, and what your rights are.  Contact us to get the help you need.

Other blog posts of interest:

Fatal choking accident at Spring Creek in Joliet

Resident suffers brain bleed in fall from bed at Meadowbrook Manor in Bolingbrook

Lakeshore Rehab resident rolled from bed, breaks leg

Aperion Care International resident fractures ankle in unsafe transfer

Resident rolled from bed at Villa of South Holland

Spinal fracture in fall from bed at Pine Acres

 

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