How to Choose a Nursing Home for a Loved One
Incidents of nursing home abuse and negligence are on the rise and that is cause for deep concern when you consider that millions of baby boomers are aging and headed in that direction. There are many reasons why nursing home abuse or neglect occurs. One of the main reasons is that nursing homes have started focusing on their profits rather than make patient care or resident care a top priority. As a result, these nursing homes understaff their facilities or hire employees for cheap who are not properly trained for the job. Serious deficiencies occur in nursing homes as a result.
If you are a victim of nursing home abuse or negligence, you have civil remedies available to you that skilled Seattle personal injury attorneys may assist you with. For example, if you tragically lose a loved one as a result of neglect, you may file a wrongful death claim against the nursing home. However, if you are looking to place a loved one in a nursing home, it is better to be proactive than reactive. Picking a nursing home for a loved one should be a carefully thought-out and well researched process. Sometimes, families may not have the time to do so because they may have to make that decision under a tight deadline.
A good start for families would be to look at the U.S. Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services’ Nursing Home Compare Web site, a database that ranks 15,700 nursing homes on a star system. One star means the facility is “below average” and five stars means it is above average and offers a high quality of care. However, even these ratings can sometimes be misleading, so they can be taken as a guide, but not as the ultimate tool to help you decide.
In most cases, if you have the time, you should visit the nursing home where you plan to place your loved one. Interview employees, gauge their attitude toward residents. Do residents look happy? Does the facility seem well-maintained? How does the place smell? How do employees interact with residents? Talk to visitors in the parking lot. Are they happy with the facility? Do they have any complaints? If you have time, make several visits to the home at different times of the day to talk to staff and inspect the home’s public areas for upkeep and cleanliness. Find out how long the caregivers have been around. If a majority of them are recent hires, that indicates staff turnover, which is not a good sign.
As an experienced personal injury attorney, Kirk Bernard knows that the best way to avoid an unpleasant experience or worse, a tragedy, is to plan early. You may not want to discuss or confront the fact that you have to place a parent in a nursing home. Choosing a nursing home can be tough, but taking the time to investigate and research the right home for your loved one will pay off in the long run and improve the chances that your eventual decision will be the correct one for you and your family.
Source:http://www.caller.com/news/2009/nov/29/choosing-nursing-home-plan-early/?partner=yahoo_feeds
