Caring for the elderly in hospitals, group homes and nursing homes is fraught with problems from over medicating patients, to people falling and injuring themselves when they're not supervised.A lack of coordinated medical treatment for patients, over-medicating elderly people to subdue behavior related to dementia and all manner of other problems recur in places that care for elderly people, according to advocates and clinicians.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., held a Senate Special Committee on Aging hearing Monday at a legislative office Monday in Hartford. The point of the hearing was to bring attention to some of those problems and to examine possible remedies.
"Preventable adverse events contributed to the deaths of as many as 950 Medicare beneficiaries last year in Connecticut alone," Jean Rexford, founder of Connecticut Center for Patient Safety, said in her testimony before Blumenthal.
And that was just in hospitals, she said. "This statistic does not include preventable deaths in our nursing homes or private homes, nor does it include the non-Medicare population," Rexford said. "Another 22,000 patients acquired infections while they were treated in health care facilities and almost all of those were preventable."
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Blumenthal Hearing On Health Issues For Elderly Includes His Brother
I am encouraged by Senator Blumenthal. I hope he replaces Herb Kohl as chair on the Senate Special Committee on Aging.
ReplyDeleteLook at the money spent in fighting this: "Another 22,000 patients acquired infections while they were treated in health care facilities and almost all of those were preventable."
ReplyDeleteIt also has me thinking of Gary Harvey. How much is it costing the taxpayers for Gary Harvey to be isolated in a hospital where he is subjected to "acquired infections" when he could be at home?
Thank you Senator Blumenthal.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, Stand Up. With Kohl, we might have a chance if Blumenthal gets in. Kohl had his own agenda on the Senate Aging Committee and it wasn't taking care of seniors.
ReplyDeleteApplause! Senator Blumenthal is aware. We need eyes on the problems.
ReplyDeleteSenator Kohl was a no show - as a former resident of Wisconsin, I'm glad he is calling it quits it's time for him to stop taking up space all talk and no action.