Falls and Fractures: Nursing Home Fall Lawyer, California / Falls and Fractures in Nursing Homes 

FALLS AND FRACTURES IN NURSING HOMES

Repeated falls in a nursing home point to short staffing or missing fall precautions; a nursing home fall lawyer reads the fall-risk assessments and incident reports.

One fall can happen. Several falls with no change in the care plan point to short staffing or missing fall precautions. Every resident is assessed for fall risk on admission and after any change in condition, and the assessment produces a care plan: bed in low position, alarm in place, two-person assist for transfers, hourly rounding. A fall that happens while those orders were ignored is not an accident. A hip fracture in an older adult carries a high risk of death within a year.

What We Investigate

• Fall-risk assessments on admission and after each fall

• Whether the care plan changed after each incident

• Call-light response times

• Incident reports and whether the family and physician were notified

• Staffing on the shift of each fall

What Families Can Do

• Ask for every incident report

• Ask what changed in the care plan after each fall

• Note call-light response times during visits

• Request a care conference in writing