Heartland of Canton
Nursing home abuse comes in many forms, some of which might surprise you. When we think of nursing home abuse, we often imagine a violent individual who uses their caregiving role to gain access to vulnerable residents who are easy to victimize for their own inexplicable pleasure. However, more often, abuse happens when caregivers simply fail to keep residents safe due to mistakes or neglect.
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The Loft Rehabilitation & Nursing of Canton – Formerly Heartland of Canton
Failing to use proper interventions to prevent falls, infections, bedsores, or other injuries, accidents, and illnesses can be considered abusive, or at least neglectful. There isn’t a lot of difference between a staff member pushing a resident down or leaving a resident’s bed positioned too high for them to safely climb out of bed without falling if in both instances the resident gets hurt. A broken bone is a broken bone in both cases.
Of course, accidents can happen to anyone. If it’s the first time a resident has shown signs of difficulty getting out of bed, that’s one thing. When there is a pattern or known condition or diagnosis, however, and staff fail to implement interventions for the resident’s safety, that is considered neglect. Repeated failure to prevent injury or illness to someone known to be at risk can become abuse.
When an individual receives nursing home care, they and their family should expect caregivers to do everything possible to protect them from all harm. That means using good sanitation practices to avoid spreading germs and illness, monitoring their health and progress, documenting changes in health or behavior, notifying doctors and family of problematic changes, following care plans to implement safety interventions, taking care during medical treatments, protecting them from abuse from both staff and other residents, and much more. Basically, the top priority of all staff at all times should be the safety and wellbeing of all residents with consideration to their individual needs.
This can be a daunting task, but it is possible to provide such comprehensive and personalized care if nursing homes make it a priority. Nursing homes are most successful at guaranteeing their residents’ safety and health when they hire enough staff to meet all residents’ needs, ensure they have a high number of skilled nursing staff, create extensive abuse-prevention protocols, and provide detailed training to staff. All of these measures reduce the stress and carelessness that often lead to patterns of unintentional neglect and abuse in nursing homes.
Unfortunately, all too many nursing homes fail to take these measures. Consequently, about 19,000 cases of nursing home abuse are reported in the state of Illinois alone each year, with thousands more going unreported. If you don’t want someone you love becoming part of these statistics, Levin & Perconti encourages you to learn how to find a nursing home that does prioritize abuse prevention before it’s too late.
Finding a Safe Nursing Home
Every nursing home advertises high-quality, personalized care in a comfortable, friendly environment, but you know from media reports that many do not live up to these promises. How can you distinguish between the trustworthy nursing homes and the dangerous ones before you move a loved one in? Luckily, Levin & Perconti has learned from our research that there are ways to learn about a nursing home’s performance even before you set foot in the door!
We advise starting on medicare.org. Medicare’s nursing home compare webpage lets you search for nursing homes in your area to see how each one is rated on categories like health inspections, staffing, quality measures, and overall performance. You can read more details about how these ratings are determined on the site, but basically these ratings will tell you if a nursing home is a high performer or low performer when it comes to giving quality care. This allows you to quickly cross off any questionable facilities from your list.
We also suggest reading the health inspection reports for the nursing homes you are considering. An above-average nursing home can still have a poor rating for health inspections, and the report will help you understand why and decide if there are too many problems there to make it worth it.
Look at the number of citations a nursing home receives and the severity of those citations. Every nursing home receives a few citations, but avoid facilities with a lot of them or with citations that indicate a pattern of abuse and neglect. This will help you narrow your search further.
Once Medicare has helped you weed out the nursing homes with demonstrable problems, it’s time to go see the most promising facilities in person. The best way to do that is to schedule tours of each of them so you can get a feel for what they are like. During each visit, observe how well-maintained the facility is, how staff and residents interact, and the general feel of the place. Does it seem friendly and homelike, or cold and drab? Is it clean, or do you see signs of excessive wear and tear or smell odd odors?
Now is the best time to ask questions. It is useful to bring a list with you, so you don’t forget anything important you want to be covered. We suggest asking questions meant to address safety precautions, such as questions about staff to resident ratios, staff qualifications and turnover, and how the facility prevents and handles abuse.
You can also ask for a copy of their grievance policy to gauge how accepting they are of complaints. You may even ask for permission to interview current residents about their experience living there. If you find you have more questions later, don’t hesitate to call or drop in again to request more information.
Abuse can occur anywhere, but it is more likely to happen in facilities that have a history of poor performance. Luckily, you don’t have to pick a nursing home blindly and hope for the best. Do your due diligence in learning more about your nursing home options and pick one that has proof of high-quality care in the form of high ratings and clean health inspection reports. Through this research, you should be able to find a residence for your family member that you feel confident in.
In addition to sharing advice for picking a nursing home, Levin & Perconti wants to help you actually do the research. That is why we share information on our own site for Illinois nursing homes. This information comes straight from medicare.org and is meant to serve as a second resource for you to quickly scan when comparing multiple nursing homes. We understand how much you love your senior family members, and we are dedicated to saving Illinois families from the pain and distress of nursing home abuse.
About The Loft Rehabilitation & Nursing of Canton
2081 N Main St.
Canton, IL 61520
The Loft Rehabilitation & Nursing of Canton, formerly Heartland of Canton, has 90 Medicare-certified beds and serves long-term residents with services like 24-hour nursing care, chronic and infectious disease management, wound care, and more. The facility also offers a “real world therapy” program that helps short-term residents restore their strength and independence so they can return to normal life.
The Loft’s services seem to be successful as the facility garnered an Above Average rating from Medicare. This score is the total of an Above Average quality measures rating, Above Average staffing rating, and Average health inspection rating.
During its last health inspection, The Loft received an average number of health citations. You can read the full details of these citations on the report published on medicare.org, or a sample of them below.
5/24/2018 Failure to develop the complete care plan within 7 days of the comprehensive assessment; and prepared, reviewed, and revised by a team of health professionals. The facility failed to revise care plans for two residents. One resident had an irregularly shaped pressure wound with necrotic tissue. His care plan did not address the wound. A second resident with cognitive impairment had multiple documented incidents of instigating physical altercations, but no interventions had been added to her care plan.
5/24/2018 Failure to ensure that a nursing home area is free from accident hazards and provides adequate supervision to prevent accidents. The facility failed to prevent accidents and hazards that caused injury to residents. Staff failed to keep one resident’s bed in a low position and failed to re-evaluate the resident’s risk for falls and interventions after removing a fall reduction assistive mattress. This resulted in the resident falling and sustaining a fracture. The facility also failed to provide supervision and interventions to prevent a resident from instigating altercations with other residents, resulting in physical attacks on four other residents.
5/24/2018 Failure to provide appropriate care for residents who are continent or incontinent of bowel/bladder, appropriate catheter care, and appropriate care to prevent urinary tract infections. Staff failed to cleanse a suprapubic catheter site from insertion site outward and perform gloves changes and hand hygiene during incontinent care for three residents.
Levin & Perconti, Your Nursing Home Abuse Law Experts
Despite your best efforts, nursing home abuse can still occur to anyone. When it does, you need the experts on your side. If you or a loved one have suffered harm at The Loft Rehabilitation & Nursing of Canton or another Illinois nursing home facility, call the experienced attorneys at Levin & Perconti. We handle all types of nursing home abuse cases, such as those involving
- Unauthorized Physical and/or Chemical Restraint Use
- Physical Abuse
- Alzheimer’s and Dementia Patients
- Falls, Improper Transfers, Drops by Staff
- Medication Errors
- Wandering and Elopement from facilities
- Pressure Sores
- Clogged Breathing Tubes
- Sepsis and Other Infections
- Burns
- Malnutrition and/or Dehydration
- Physical or Sexual Assault or Abuse
As nationally recognized nursing home abuse law experts, we can get you the results you seek. We’ve already won over $160 million in verdicts and settlements for nursing home abuse victims, and we can win for you too. All you have to do is contact us online or call Levin & Perconti at 888-424-5757 any time for a free consultation and the help you need.
Disclaimer: The above health inspection findings are taken from public records kept and published by Medicare and the state of Illinois and are not complete. Levin & Perconti cannot confirm that this page’s content includes the latest information available. Any corrections or additions made to these public records after the publication of this page will not be found here. For the most up-to-date information, visit www.il.gov or medicare.gov. This page is a legal advertisement and informational resource for visitors and is not endorsed by the named facility or any government agency. Levin & Perconti does not have any affiliation with the named facility.
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for a 59-year-old resident who developed multiple painful and infected bedsores which took four years to heal.
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