On December 26, 2017, an unidentified patient was accidentally injected with a paralyzing anesthetic at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The hospital is under investigation for not being upfront with the Davison County Medical Examiner about the deadly medication error.

The patient was being treated at Vanderbilt for a subdural hematoma, also known as bleeding in the brain, and was suffering from headaches and vision loss. Even with those symptoms, the patient was awake, alert, and improving.

There are a number of factors that play into why an automobile crash happens. While we most often think of driver negligence, there are instances where road conditions or ambiguous traffic signs can contribute to an accident. Whether you mostly drive around town or have a long, daily highway commute to work, it’s important to be aware of where the most dangerous spots are for travel. This awareness may help you avoid situations that could result in a wreck.

It can be a frightening and overwhelming experience to learn your baby is ill or has been diagnosed with a medical condition. There are likely to be doctor’s visits, tests, and treatments, and it’s normal to have questions regarding how the illness or condition arose. New babies can suffer from two different types of medical problems: birth injuries and birth defects. While those terms are sometimes used interchangeably, it’s crucial to understand the difference between the two.

Understanding Birth Defects

A birth defect is a disease or medical condition that develops while a child is still growing in the womb. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), birth defects are common. Every four and a half minutes, a baby is born with a birth defect in the United States. That means that nearly 120,000, or one in 33, babies are affected by this issue every year.

These conditions are structural changes that can affect how any part of the body looks, works, or both. The severity depends greatly on the defect. In some cases, quality of life or lifespan can be impacted. Most birth defects are found within the first year of life or before birth. While some may be easy to see, like a physical deformity, special tests are needed to detect heart defects or hearing loss, for example.

Most birth defects form in the first three months of pregnancy; however, some can occur in the latter six months. In many cases, a birth defect is completely outside you or your doctor’s control.

Just because a lawyer is famous, doesn’t mean you’ll get the results you want. Andrew Milder learned this the hard way. He was wrongfully arrested and hired Hollywood attorney, Shawn Holley. Holley has a client list full of celebrities. She was on the defense team for O.J. Simpson, represented Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Justin Bieber, Kim Kardashian West, and Kanye West. She accompanied Kim Kardashian West to the White House when she spoke with the president about Alice Marie Johnson, a first-time drug offender who was serving a life sentence.

But Milder’s experience as Holley’s client in 2012 wasn’t a good one. His retainer agreement was $25,000, plus costs for a private investigator who would find more evidence for Andrew’s case.

The HCR ManorCare nursing home in Pottsville, PA was investigated by state inspectors in 2017. What they found was not the environment of a caring, healthy, and well-run nursing home. Instead, the residents who lived there were severely neglected.

Neglect included failure to maintain resident hygiene, as shown by a disabled man who had long, dirty fingernails. The nursing home didn’t have enough staff to properly respond to the call buttons from the residents’ bedsides. It was common for residents to regularly soil themselves because it took too long for staff to get there to help them go to the bathroom.

There was one instance where a woman, who was dying of uterine cancer, was bruised because she was left on a bedpan for too long. A man was given too many opioids and had to go to the hospital. An unsupervised bus trip with one staff member in charge of six residents who needed aid with walking resulted in a resident flipping backward on a wheelchair ramp and had a brain hemorrhage.

On November 14, 2018, the Pennsylvania Board of Examiners of Nursing Home Administrators voted to reduce the number of continuing education credit hours required every two years for licensed nursing home administrators. The Board voted seven to three to reduce the credit hours from 48 to 36.

We understand the importance of spending time with your family and friends during the holidays; but between shopping for presents, baking, decorating, and wrapping, the time can fly by quickly. Before the season is over, check out all that Philadelphia has to offer! There are a number of shows, festivals, and events to attend. If you’re looking for the perfect place to grab a bite to eat or wondering where to shop locally for your gifts, we’ve got info on those places, too.

We are pleased to announce that Attorney Rob Sachs of Shrager & Sachs has written an article titled, “Plaintiff’s Challenges to Pre-Suit, Binding Arbitrations in Nursing Homes,” which has been published by the Pennsylvania Association for Justice. In the article, he addresses two significant days for nursing home residents throughout the state of Pennsylvania, September 27 and 28.

On September 27th, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which administers over $1 trillion of federal reserves, issued final rules that will disallow binding, pre-dispute arbitration clauses in nursing facilities that are federally funded. Unfortunately, the next day, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court stated that it is bound by the US Supreme Court precedent and upheld the arbitration clause that will force separate arbitrations of survival actions that are bound by arbitration clauses and wrongful death action trials.

Suffering an injury on the job can create a number of setbacks and concerns for victims and their families. That’s especially true if injuries are severe enough to require extensive medical treatment, long recoveries, and limited opportunity to work and earn needed wages. Fortunately, there are systems in place designed to help injured workers harmed as a result of the work they perform and provide them with compensation. Choosing the right pathway to compensation and navigating it effectively, however, is not always a simple task.

At Shrager & Sachs, our Philadelphia personal injury lawyers provide injured victims and their families with the guidance needed to navigate the civil justice system, including victims who suffered injuries on the job as a result of preventable accidents and therefore have the ability to pursue civil personal injury lawsuits outside of workers’ compensation. From helping clients understand their rights and options to tenaciously fighting for the full financial recoveries they deserve, we work toward the best outcome possible.

What About Workers’ Compensation?

Whether you were involved in a construction accident, a car accident, or another incident while at work, your work-related injury is likely covered by your employer’s workers’ compensation insurance. Workers’ comp can be important for workers who suffer work-related injuries or illnesses, as it can provide wage supplementation while they recover, vocational rehabilitation services, and needed medical treatment – even if a worker caused their own injuries.

While workers’ compensation is important, especially since it is a no-fault system, there are times when injured workers may have other available options. This includes a civil personal injury lawsuit. Typically, these lawsuits require victims to prove that the negligent or wrongful acts of another party, who isn’t their employer (except in rare circumstances), more likely than not caused them harm. When successful, victims can hold at-fault parties financially liable for their damages, and recover a larger scope of damages that may not have been available to them under workers’ compensation, including damages for their pain and suffering.

A new study is revealing an alarming trend among nursing homes – facilities are increasingly providing elderly residents with intensive, costly, and possibly unnecessary therapy, even in the last weeks of their lives. The study, conducted by the University of Rochester and published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, is raising concerns about the necessity and potential dangers of intensive therapy, as well as whether profits may be prompting their use.

Here are a few key details about the study:

• For the study, researchers gathered and reviewed data from over 600 nursing facilities in the state of New York and the records of nearly 56,000 deceased individuals who were long-stay residents.
• The study had a special focus on residents who received “ultrahigh intensity” rehabilitation services in the 30 days prior to their death. These services, including various forms of physical, speech, and occupational therapy, are classified at “ultrahigh” by Medicare if they are provided for more than 12 hours in a week, which is equivalent to 2 hours of rehab a day.
• According to researchers, nursing homes are increasingly utilizing ultrahigh intensity therapy. From October 2012 to April 2016, the study notes, there was a 65 percent increase in the proportion of residents who received these services.
• Most of the ultrahigh rehabilitation services residents received was provided during their final days of life.