Elder Law

Illinois Nursing Home Reform Must Occur

By Levin & Perconti

Recently a long-term care ombudsman wrote to the State Journal-Register to discuss the importance of nursing home reform, a sentiment shared by many advocacy groups. The AARP, Illinois Citizens for Better Care, and Next Steps are all backing Illinois Senate Bill 685, which advocates a proposal to fix the quality of care in nursing homes. Also the Governor?s Nursing Home Safety Task Force, House bill 6440, will hopefully incorporate the new measures they are searching.

This nursing home legislation will ensure that there are background checks for those residents who have been identified as dangerous. It will also include mandatory drug-specific informed consent for psychotropic drugs. There will be increased fines for those nursing homes that are providing poor care. This legislation will affect poorly performing nursing homes and help those residing in the homes. By recommending minimum staffing and improved training to employees, residents will have much greater care. Many studies have shown that employee care is the most important factor in a nursing home. This new legislation will help increase the employee to patient ratio.

The new legislation is vital to improving nursing home care in Illinois. However, many nursing home directors are not in full support of the measures. They forget about the thousands of nursing home residents who have become victims of neglect and abuse. The Chicago nursing home lawyers of Levin & Perconti fully support the new nursing home legislation and applaud the Illinois legislators who support the bills. To learn more about the Illinois nursing home legislation, please click the link.

Full post as published by Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Blog on April 09, 2010 (boomark / email).