Cicero nursing home cited in fall

Barry Doyle

Attorney
(866) 735-1102 Ext 800

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A Cicero nursing home was cited by the Illinois Department of Public Health after a resident was injured in a fall at the facility. IDPH found that the nursing home failed to make a proper assessment of the resident's fall risk and failed to update the care plan in light of additional falls the resident had at the facility before the one in which he was injured.

The resident had to be hospitalized for treatment of a subdural hematoma.

To a large extent, falls in the elderly are predictable. In fact, falls are one of the main reasons that families will seek to admit a loved one to a nursing home.

Once they are there, the nursing home is under an obligation to properly assess the resident's risk of falling and to put appropriate interventions into place to prevent additional falls. If a resident continues to have falls, this is significant because it indicates one of several things: that the fall prevention plan was inadequate, that the risk was underassessed, or the fall risk has increased since the assessment was done. A proper care plan which meets the resident's current fall risk must be in place at all times.