(914) 220-1086
Nursing homes are over-diagnosing patients with schizophrenia in order to conceal the high rates at which they’re prescribing antipsychotic medications, according to a recent report by the New York Times. Schizophrenia diagnoses among nursing home residents have “soared” as much as 70% since the federal government started making public disclosures of antipsychotic drug prescriptions in […]
Medical Malpractice
Linden Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation Cited for Infection
Linden Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation received 16 citations for violations of public health code between 2017 and 2021, according to New York State Department of Health records accessed on September 3, 2021. The Brooklyn nursing home’s citations resulted from a total of two surveys by state inspectors. The violations they describe include the following: 1. […]
Rebekah Rehab and Extended Care Cited for Psychotropic Drug Use
Rebekah Rehab and Extended Care Center received 10 citations for violations of public health code between 2017 and 2021, according to New York State Department of Health records accessed on September 3, 2021. The Bronx nursing home’s citations resulted from a total of three surveys by state inspectors. The violations they describe include the following: 1. […]
NY Assemblyman: Hold For-Profit Nursing Homes Accountable
A report released last year by New York Assemblyman Ron Kim examined the thousands of deaths from Covid-19 in the state’s nursing homes in an attempt to identify underlying problems that caused the raft of fatalities and what can be done to address those problems. The report, published by Kim’s office in July 2020, is […]
Van Duyn Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing Cited for Abuse, Medication Errors
Van Duyn Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing has received 57 citations for violations of public health code between 2017 and 2021, according to New York State Department of Health records accessed on April 8, 2021. The facility has additionally received seven fines totaling $90,000 since 2008. The Syracuse nursing home’s citations resulted from a total […]
Hospital Bedsore Risk Increases During Pandemic
Experts have expressed concerns that pressure injuries, also known as bedsores, have risen with the spike in hospitalizations during the Covid-19 pandemic. As such, according to a new report in USA Today, “hospitals are putting extra focus” on preventing bedsores, which more than 2.5 million people suffer from each year, according to a the National Pressure Injury Advisory […]
Does Daylight Savings Time Increase Medical Errors?
A new study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine finds that the springtime transition to Daylight Savings Time may result in an increase in medical errors made by healthcare orders. The study was published in August 2020 by a group of authors including Branu Prakash Kolla of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychology at the Mayo Clinic; […]
Do “No Harm” Citations Adversely Affect Nursing Home Accountability?
A new edition of the Long Term Care Community Coalition Elder Justice Newsletter asks a simple question: does providing a nursing home resident breakfast in their soiled bed constitute harm? How about failing to provide a stop date for a resident’s psychotropic medication? “No Harm” deficiencies refer to citations of rule violations at nursing homes […]
Oklahoma Cracks Down on Antipsychotics in Nursing Homes
Oklahoma’s new elder abuse law cracks down on the use by nursing homes of “chemical restraints” on their patients. According to America Nurse Today, chemical restraints are unnecessary medications used to “restrict a patient’s movement or behavior.” Importantly, these chemical restraints are not a part of a standard approved treatment. Most commonly, nursing homes use […]
Cuomo Limits New York Malpractice Immunity Law
Last month New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill placing restrictions on the medical malpractice immunity he granted New York hospitals and nursing home facilities at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a report by Newsday. The bill, signed in August, gave hospitals and nursing homes immunity in malpractice claims involving Covid-19, whereas a March executive […]
Williamsbridge Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing Cited for Elopement
Williamsbridge Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing received 29 citations for violations of public health laws between 2015 and 2019, according to New York State Department of Health records accessed on November 14, 2019. These citations include one that authorities determined to reflect “a severe, systemic deficiency.” The Bronx nursing home’s citations resulted from a total […]
Tarrytown Hall Care Center Cited for Abuse
Tarrytown Hall Care Center in Tarrytown, New York has received 26 citations for violations of public health law between 2015 and 2019, according to records provided by the New York State Department of Health and accessed on November 4, 2019. The citations resulted from six inspections by the Department, the public entity responsible for enforcing safety […]
Sprain Brook Manor Rehab Cited For Pressure Ulcers, Abuse
Sprain Brook Manor Rehab in Scarsdale, New York received 40 citations for violations of public health laws between October 2015 and September 2019, according to the New York State Department of Health records accessed on November 4, 2019. The citations resulted from eight inspections by the Department of Health, the public entity tasked with overseeing health […]
Briarcliff Manor Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing Care Cited For Pressure Ulcers
Between 2015 and 2019, Briarcliff Manor Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing Care received 48 citations for violations of public health laws, according to the New York Department of Health on November 2, 2019. The Briarcliff Manor, New York nursing home received these citations after four inspections during that period, in addition to the two fines it received […]
Queens ‘Pill Mill’ Doctor Pleads Guilty in Deaths of Three Patients
A disgraced doctor pleaded guilty to three charges of manslaughter last week in Queens, according to The New York Daily News, Indicted on felony charges last year, Dr. Lawrence Choy ran a ‘pill mill’ out of his Queens office from 2012 to 2016. The former doctor routinely prescribed the so-called ‘Holy Trinity’ of drugs to his […]
Doctor Operates on the Wrong Eye
An ophthalmologist is facing a lawsuit and revocation of his medical license after operating on the wrong eye. The Chicago woman, Sutton Dryfhout, says she came in for a routine cyst removal surgery and experienced a living nightmare. According to Dryfhout, Dr. Benjamin Ticho realized his mistake after the surgery when Dryfhout was already in post-operative […]
Blood Infection Outbreak at NY Hospital Caused by Opioid-Stealing Nurse
An outbreak of a rare blood infection in a New York hospital traced back to an opioid-stealing nurse, reports Gizmodo. According to the technology and science website, six cancer patients developed a serious and rare blood infection from June to July 2018 at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, New York. According to the website, […]
New Bill Strengthening Informed Consent Laws for Medical Exams Heads to Gov. Cuomo
New York may join the rush of states requiring explicit informed consent for patients undergoing medical exams. The new law aims to prevent medical students and residents from performing pelvic, rectal or prostate exams on patients while they are under anesthesia. Amazingly, these medical exams are routinely performed on men and women while they are […]
New York Hospitals Continue to Rank Poorly for Patient Safety
New York hospitals continue to rank poorly compared to the rest of the country, according to the nonprofit LeapFrog’s rankings released last month. According to Washington D.C. organization, which ranks hospitals on 12 factors related to patient safety and then assigns a letter grade between A and F to each hospital, New York is the […]
New York Nursing Home Fined 50k for Medication Error
The federal government fined a Buffalo nursing home $47,827 for erroneously administering insulin to a resident. According to The Buffalo News, the fine against Humboldt House represents the sixth largest in New York for 2018. The newspaper reports that a physician at the nursing home administered insulin to a diabetic resident in February 2018 despite […]
Trump Administration Seeks to Weaken Regulation on Antipsychotics in Nursing Homes
As part of a broader push to deregulate the nursing home industry, the Trump administration has proposed rolling back regulations on antipsychotic use in nursing homes. Under current nursing home regulations, doctors who prescribe antipsychotics to the elderly on an “as needed” basis may only write a prescription for 14 days. At the end of […]
Employees Steal 750k from Nursing Home Resident
Employees at an Illinois nursing home stole more than $750,000 from a 96-year-old woman, according to The Chicago Sun Times. After the appalling theft, the thieves are now trying to delay the nursing home patient’s lawsuit trying to recover the stolen funds. According to attorneys for the elderly woman, the former nursing home employees are […]
Westchester Doctor Convicted for Stealing 540k from 97-year-old
A Westchester doctor was convicted of stealing over half-a-million dollars from an elderly woman. According to LoHud.com, physician Peter Corines of Eastchester stole the massive sums from a 97-year-old woman over just a two-week period in November 2017. The jury convicted the disgraced doctor of three felonies stemming from the stolen money and stolen identity […]
Lawsuit: Hidden Cameras Film Hospital Patients
More than eighty patients filed suit against a California women’s hospital for allegedly filming them while undressed and receiving medical care. These women claim that the secretly recorded footage includes them in stirrups receiving intimate medical procedures, sterilizations, and dilation and curettages after miscarriages, according to The Washington Post. The secret recordings took place over an […]
FDA “Exemption” Database Hides Malfunctioning Medical Devices from Public
The FDA has quietly expanded a so-called “exemption database” allowing medical device manufacturers to shield the injuries and fatalities attributed to their devices from public scrutiny. According to a recent article in Kaiser Health News, the number of malfunctioning devices submitted as an “alternative summary report” not available to the public numbered between 431,000 and 481,000 in the […]
