Falls.... A prelude to litigation

For years long-term care has found itself vulnerable to law suits. This is still true today. On any given day, nursing homes and the staff employed by them are only one unhappy client away from receiving a notice of intent. In today's litigious world, nursing homes must have in place, effective policies and procedures to minimize their risk for a lawsuit. Part of managing the risk, is having a multi-disciplinary team in place that takes a proactive approach to patient safety. The particularly high risk patients for incident are ambulatory patients with cognitive impairment. The multi disciplinary team must aggressively address each of these residents in relation to their fall risk. Implementation of a comprehensive plan of care, maintaining good communication between facility and the patients' physicians and families, and quality charting by the nursing staff, are some of the key elements in preventing litigation.