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When a patient seeks out medical care, they trust doctors, nurses, and other healthcare providers to act with skill and professionalism. Unfortunately, medical mistakes happen far more often than many people realize. While some medical errors cause temporary, minor harm, others can lead to permanent injury, disability, or even death. In New York, medical malpractice […]
Medical Malpractice
Bombshell Report: “Phony” Diagnoses Behind Nursing Home Druggings
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 […]
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 25 citations for violations of public health code between 2018 and 2022, according to New York State Department of Health records accessed on September 16, 2022. The Bronx nursing home’s citations resulted from a total of six surveys by state inspectors. The violations they describe include the following: Rebekah […]
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; […]
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 […]
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
Briarcliff Manor Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing has received 27 citations for violations of public health code between 2018 and 2021, according to New York State Department of Health records accessed on February 11, 2022. The Briarcliff Manor nursing home’s citations resulted from a total of two surveys by state inspectors. The deficiencies they describe include […]
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 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 […]
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: New York Doctor Lost Medical Records, Overprescribed Opioids
Once named one of ‘America’s Most Beautiful Physicians’, a New York doctor is now being hauled into court by former patients who say they lost his medical records and over-prescribed powerful pain medications, among several other allegations. Reported by NBC New York, cardiovascular surgeon David Gruener has recently come under scrutiny by government regulators and patients […]
After Losing Out-of-State License, Doctors Continue Practicing in New York
The New York Medical Board is slow to punish doctors who lose their license to practice in other states. According to The New York Post, the state licensing board for doctors took between “a few weeks to several months” to stop 14 doctors who had lost their ability to practice medicine in New Jersey over the […]
Federal Government Opens Probe into VA Hospital
The federal government opened a probe into a hospital run by the Department of Veteran Affairs. According to the New York Daily News, the federal probe is a response to a veteran’s allegations of neglect, medical malpractice, and elder abuse. The local newspaper describes the experience of Gary Zambito, who served in the armed forces during the […]
New York Hospitals Agree to Hire More Nurses, Establish Minimum Staffing Ratios
In a major victory for New York nurses, several major hospitals agreed to establish minimum staffing levels for nurses at hospitals. The unions representing the nurses in negotiations had threatened to a 10,000-strong strike at the hospitals if the hospitals did not satisfy their demands. Marc Kramer, the lead negotiator for the hospitals, told The New […]
Most Common Sentinel Events of 2018
The Joint Commission released its report on the top sentinel events of 2018 and, unsurprisingly, patient falls and “unintended retention of a foreign body” took the top spot for another year. According to the Joint Commission, a sentinel event is “an unexpected event in a healthcare setting that results in death or serious injury to a patient.” […]
New HBO Documentary “Bleed Out” Shines Light on Medical Errors
The new documentary “Bleed Out” provides an infuriating first-hand account of a routine surgery that went horribly wrong and changed a woman’s life. The documentary, which was released on HBO this month, dives into the third most common killer of Americans – preventable medical errors. According to a study released by Johns Hopkins University, medical errors kill […]
Criticism Grows Over New York Department of Health’s “Oversight” of Nursing Homes
Only two weeks after putting a Buffalo nursing home under conservatorship, the New York Department of Health announced that Emerald North and Emerald South Nursing and Rehabilitation Center will be closing their doors. The closure follows a long line of missteps and scandals by the formerly for-profit nursing homes, according to The Buffalo News. In […]
