Attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg Remarks on Illinois’ Poor Rating for Nursing Home Care

Chicago, IL (Law Firm Newswire) February 14, 2014 – A nonprofit organization has stated that nursing home care in Illinois is among the worst in the nation.

Families for Better Care gave Illinois an overall grade of F and ranked the state 42nd in the country for nursing home care.

“This should be a wake-up call for nursing homes in the state of Illinois,” said Robert Briskman, a nursing home abuse and neglect attorney. “Our seniors residing in skilled nursing facilities deserve the very best health medical care and safety conditions, as well as environments free of abuse and neglect. Unfortunately, our state currently falls far short of that goal.”

From a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of staffing data, Families for Better Care found that Illinois nursing homes had the fewest frontline caregivers working in nursing homes in the entire country. Facilities provided as little as two hours of direct care per resident per day. The data also showed that residents received less than an hour of care by registered nurses each day.

The non-profit said that 96 percent of facilities in Illinois had a deficiency reported, such as improper administration of medication. There was a “severe deficiency” in one out of every four nursing homes in the state. “Severe deficiencies” can include serious health and safety issues, including fractures or pressure sores, staff members being unable to locate residents, and even unnecessary deaths. The non-profit compiled its information on deficiencies from Medicare’s Nursing Home Compare website.

Illinois also received a “poor” rating in terms of health inspections, with only 35 percent of facilities receiving an above average health inspection rating.

The director of Families for Better Care, Brian Lee, said that Illinois received a passing grade in only one out of eight measures used to gauge the quality of care. Lee called for Illinois legislators to require larger staffs at nursing facilities, saying that poor staffing standards are a root cause of nursing home neglect.

Families for Better Care is a nonprofit advocacy group that works for greater public awareness of conditions in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. The state-by-state report card issued by the group is the first of its kind.