Wilmington Personal Injury Law Blog

Nursing home safety and health care reform often go hand-in-hand. We recently discussed issues of dangerous prescribing practices in nursing homes around the country, with many patients being given strong anti-psychotic medications as a way to control behavior. This practice has caused injuries and fatalities for nursing home patients and has shined a spotlight on how we administer care and avoid injuries.

Advocates for nursing home patients and health care reform proponents say that an emphasis on strict regulations and avoidance-based practices have led to conditions in nursing homes that are impersonal and oppressive for patients.

Almost every state in the country, including Delaware, is expected to have a record low number of fatalities from car accidents for 2011. Authorities have not collected all of the data yet, but the majority of the results indicate that last year had the lowest number of traffic fatalities on record nationwide.

The decrease from 2010 was about 2 percent, which seems small but is significant over thousands of car accidents that happen each year. Accident rates have been falling in general over the past several years, largely due to safer cars and well maintained roadways. The total number of traffic fatalities nationwide this year was 32,310 according to current estimates.

Different types of nursing home malpractice have been making the news lately. As our population ages, more and more Americans require advanced care that is only available in these types of facilities. Controversy has recently erupted over what appears to be a common practice of prescribing powerful antipsychotic medications to patients for uses outside of those approved by the FDA.

The concern over these drugs centers around the high risk of severe side effects for patients with complex medical histories who are on a wide variety of other medications. Side effects can be very serious and the drugs are sometimes fatal for dementia patients. The revelation that the drugs are being improperly prescribed will potentially lead to many nursing home malpractice lawsuits.

When a patient went to see an experienced plastic surgeon for liposuction, she assumed she was getting a standard procedure. But when she experienced irregular scarring and severe pain, she looked into the details of her procedure.

According to the medical malpractice lawsuit that the woman filed, her doctor didn't use the commonplace liposuction technology to conduct her procedure. Instead, he used a product not yet approved by the FDA. In order to use unapproved devices, doctors typically must enroll the patient in a clinical trial and often provide compensation in exchange. In this case, the woman was unaware that she was participating in a clinical trial and did not get paid.