Negligence is at the center of most nursing home abuse, nursing home neglect, and medical malpractice cases.
But a bad outcome does not automatically mean negligence occurred.
The important questions are what care was required, what the nursing home or healthcare provider knew, what they did or failed to do, and whether that failure caused injury or death.
At Ross Mann Nursing Home and Medical Negligence Lawyers, we investigate those questions through the records, the medicine, the staffing, the care planning, and the decisions that were made before the injury occurred.
What Does Negligence Mean?
In general, a negligence claim requires proof that the defendant owed a duty, failed to meet the applicable standard of care, and caused injury or damages as a result.
In a nursing home or medical negligence case, those concepts can become complicated.
The case may involve hundreds or thousands of pages of medical records. Multiple nurses, physicians, therapists, administrators, management companies, or corporate entities may be involved. The resident or patient may already have serious medical conditions.
That is why these cases usually cannot be evaluated simply by asking whether somebody made a mistake.
The evidence has to show what the defendant was required to do and how the failure affected the resident or patient.
Negligence in a Nursing Home Case
Nursing homes care for people who often cannot safely care for themselves.
Residents may need assistance with walking, transferring, toileting, eating, drinking, medications, skin care, wound treatment, supervision, or recognizing changes in their medical condition.
The nursing home should assess those needs and develop a plan for providing the necessary care.
A nursing home neglect case may arise when the facility identifies a resident’s risk but fails to provide the care necessary to address it.
For example, a resident may be identified as requiring assistance whenever getting out of bed. If staff repeatedly leave the resident unattended and the resident falls, the question becomes whether the facility failed to provide the assistance its own assessments showed was necessary.
The Care Plan Matters
A nursing home’s care plan can be an important part of a neglect investigation.
The care plan should identify significant risks and describe the interventions intended to address them.
But a written care plan does not protect a resident if nobody actually follows it.
We compare the plan with the nursing documentation, incident reports, staffing information, treatment records, hospital records, and other evidence.
The important issue is not simply what the nursing home said it intended to do.
It is what actually happened.
Minimum Data Set Assessments
The Minimum Data Set, often called the MDS, contains detailed assessments of a nursing home resident’s condition and needs.
Depending on the resident, the MDS may contain information concerning mobility, cognitive impairment, nutrition, skin condition, continence, activities of daily living, falls, and other areas of care.
Those assessments can become important when a nursing home later argues that it did not know a resident was at risk.
If the facility’s own records repeatedly identified a problem, we want to know whether appropriate interventions followed.
Negligence and Nursing Home Falls
A nursing home resident falling does not automatically mean the nursing home was negligent.
Some falls occur despite appropriate care.
The investigation focuses on what the facility knew before the fall.
Was the resident identified as a fall risk? Did the resident require assistance with transfers or toileting? Had the resident already fallen? Was the resident cognitively impaired or impulsive? Were alarms, supervision, assistive devices, or other precautions ordered?
If the nursing home knew the resident needed help, the next question is whether that help was actually available when the resident needed it.
Repeated falls can be particularly important.
After a resident falls, the facility should reassess the circumstances and determine whether the care plan needs to change.
Pressure Injuries and Negligence
Pressure injuries can involve complicated medical issues.
Residents may already have diabetes, vascular disease, poor nutrition, immobility, incontinence, or other conditions that increase risk.
Those risk factors do not eliminate the facility’s responsibility to provide appropriate care.
Depending on the circumstances, an investigation may involve repositioning, skin inspections, moisture management, pressure-relieving equipment, nutrition, wound treatment, physician notification, and whether deterioration was recognized promptly.
We compare the wound’s progression with what the records say was being done.
Medication Errors
Medication negligence can involve giving the wrong medication, giving medication intended for another resident, administering the wrong dose, failing to give an ordered medication, duplicate dosing, insulin errors, anticoagulant errors, or failing to monitor the resident after medication administration.
When a serious medication error occurs, we do not automatically stop with the person who physically administered the drug.
The investigation may include training, supervision, medication-management procedures, staffing levels, prior medication errors, pharmacy records, and whether the system had adequate safeguards.
Sometimes what appears to be one employee’s mistake is evidence of a larger operational problem.
Infection, Sepsis, and Delayed Treatment
Nursing home residents can deteriorate quickly.
Negligence may occur when staff fail to recognize or respond appropriately to signs of infection or other serious changes in condition.
The timing matters.
We may examine when symptoms first appeared, what the vital signs showed, when abnormal findings were documented, when a physician was notified, what orders were received, when the family was contacted, and when the resident was transferred to the hospital.
The nursing home’s defense may be that the condition progressed too rapidly to prevent.
That makes the medical timeline critical.
Dehydration and Malnutrition
Nursing home residents can develop poor intake for many legitimate medical reasons.
Negligence becomes a concern when warning signs appear but meaningful intervention does not follow.
Weight records, meal intake, fluid intake, swallowing problems, dietary evaluations, supplements, laboratory results, physician notifications, and the amount of assistance the resident required can all matter.
A chart that repeatedly documents declining intake without an effective response may raise serious questions about the care being provided.
Choking and Aspiration
Residents with swallowing impairment may require special diets, thickened liquids, supervision, positioning, or feeding assistance.
If a choking or aspiration event occurs, we compare those requirements with the care that was actually provided.
The question may be whether the resident was given food that violated the diet order, was left unsupervised despite known risks, or did not receive the assistance required by the care plan.
Understaffing and Negligence
A nursing home can have excellent written policies and still provide negligent care if there are not enough qualified employees available to carry those policies out.
Residents require assistance throughout the day and night.
They do not need toileting, repositioning, medication, feeding, supervision, or emergency response only when staffing levels make it convenient.
That is why staffing can become important evidence.
We may examine who was working, how many residents they were responsible for, the residents’ acuity and care needs, employee assignments, timekeeping information, and what was happening in the building when the incident occurred.
The question is whether the nursing home had the people necessary to provide the care its residents actually required.
Corporate Decisions Can Matter
The local nursing home is not always the only company involved in how the facility operates.
A separate company may own the real estate. Another may operate the facility. A management company may influence staffing, budgets, policies, purchasing, or other important decisions.
In an appropriate case, negligence may have to be investigated beyond the actions of individual nurses or aides.
We may examine ownership information, management agreements, budgets, staffing targets, policies, organizational structures, and communications between the facility and related corporate entities.
The goal is to determine who actually made the decisions that affected resident care.
Medical Negligence
Medical negligence cases involve a related but distinct analysis.
Doctors, hospitals, nurses, pharmacists, and other healthcare providers are expected to provide care consistent with the applicable professional standard.
A medical malpractice case may involve delayed diagnosis, surgical errors, medication mistakes, failure to respond to abnormal testing, inadequate monitoring, improper treatment, or other failures in medical care.
The important issue is not whether another doctor might have made a different choice.
The issue is whether the care fell below the applicable standard and whether that failure caused harm.
Negligence Is Not Enough Without Causation
Proving negligence alone does not establish a successful case.
The negligence must also have caused or contributed to the injury or death.
That issue can become particularly important in nursing home litigation because residents often have significant preexisting medical conditions.
A nursing home may argue that osteoporosis caused the fracture, vascular disease caused the wound, dementia caused the weight loss, or underlying illness caused the resident’s death.
Those defenses have to be evaluated against the medical evidence.
The question is whether negligent care caused additional harm, worsened an existing condition, accelerated deterioration, or contributed to the final outcome.
What Records Can Reveal Negligence?
A serious nursing home or medical negligence case is rarely proved from one document.
Depending on the circumstances, important evidence may include:
- nursing and physician notes;
- hospital and emergency department records;
- medication and treatment administration records;
- care plans and MDS assessments;
- fall-risk and skin-risk assessments;
- wound records and photographs;
- weight, nutrition, and hydration records;
- incident reports;
- staffing schedules and timekeeping records;
- physician orders and communications;
- EMS records;
- survey and inspection history;
- admission documents and arbitration agreements;
- corporate ownership and management records; and
- expert review of the medical evidence.
We use those materials to reconstruct what the resident needed, what the defendants knew, what care was provided, and how the injury occurred.
Negligence and Wrongful Death
When nursing home neglect or medical negligence contributes to a death, the investigation becomes even more important.
We examine the medical course leading to death, hospital records, physician opinions, underlying medical conditions, timing of deterioration, and whether negligent care caused or contributed to the death.
The fact that a resident was elderly or medically fragile does not automatically answer that question.
How Ross Mann Nursing Home and Medical Negligence Lawyers Investigates Negligence
We start with the evidence.
We build the timeline.
We identify what care was required.
We compare the assessments and care plans with what was actually documented.
We examine staffing, medical causation, ownership, corporate involvement, and the explanations offered by the defendants.
When expert medical review is necessary, we work with qualified professionals to evaluate the standard of care and causation.
If the evidence does not support a negligence claim, we say so.
If it does, we prepare the case with the expectation that the defendants may require us to prove it.
Talk to a Kentucky Nursing Home and Medical Negligence Lawyer
If someone you love suffered a serious injury or died after suspected nursing home neglect or medical negligence, you do not need to determine for yourself whether the legal standard of negligence has been met.
That is what the investigation is for.
Ross Mann Nursing Home and Medical Negligence Lawyers represents families throughout Kentucky in serious nursing home abuse, neglect, medical malpractice, and wrongful death cases.
Contact our Lexington office for a free consultation.