The key to evaluating the care of a nursing home is simply this: the level of care of that
the nursing home needs to provide must meet the level of assistance that the resident
requires. In other words, you can’t have a disconnect between level of need and level of
care. That can mean that the facility will need to increase care for a resident as his or her
needs increase, including adjustments to the facility, the staffing, the timing of care, the
supervision, and any other care that the nursing home may need to provide to keep the
resident healthy and safe.
If someone is displaying behaviors that need additional supervision, nursing homes are
required to provide the additional supervision or to inform the patient and her family
that they are not able to provide the needed level of care and that the family needs to find a
different facility. It is common with cases where elderly people are prone to falling
where, instead of increasing the level of care for someone who is a demonstrated fall
risk, a facility will simply allow that person to keep falling.
We have handled cases where people have fallen about twenty times in just a period of months
and there had been no change in the level of care. Sometimes in those situations, the
person may fall and die, while the nursing home disclaims any responsibility.
