Articles Posted in Health and Safety Reports

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HospitalNursingHomeWetFloorNursing home residents suffer frequent falls, all too often resulting in permanent disabilities, reduced quality of life and fatality. While physical health often contributes to these falls, many causes are the result of safety hazards, which may have been prevented.

The CDC urges nursing homes to implement fall prevention interventions to protect residents and reduce environmental risks. We have highlighted some of these fall hazards and prevention strategies below. Please view the full report at the CDC.

Why do falls occur more often in nursing homes?

Falling can be a sign of other health problems. People in nursing homes are generally frailer than older adults living in the community. They are usually older, have more chronic conditions, and have more difficulty walking. They also tend to have thought or memory problems, to have difficulty with activities of daily living, and to need help getting around or taking care of themselves. All of these factors are linked to falling.

What are the most common causes of nursing home falls?

  • Muscle weakness and walking or gait problems are the most common causes of falls among nursing home residents. These problems account for about 24% of the falls in nursing homes.
  • Environmental hazards in nursing homes cause 16% to 27% of falls among residents.
  • Such hazards include wet floors, poor lighting, incorrect bed height, and improperly fitted or maintained wheelchairs.
  • Medications can increase the risk of falls and fall-related injuries. Drugs that affect the central nervous system, such as sedatives and anti-anxiety drugs, are of particular concern. Fall risk is significantly elevated during the three days following any change in these types of medications.
  • Other causes of falls include difficulty in moving from one place to another (for example, from the bed to a chair), poor foot care, poorly fitting shoes, and improper or incorrect use of walking aids.

How can we prevent falls in nursing homes?

Fall prevention in nursing homes presents multiple challenges. It requires a combination of medical treatment, rehabilitation, and environmental changes. Fall prevention interventions can be implemented at the organizational, staff or patient levels. The most effective interventions address multiple factors or use a multidisciplinary team.

Fall interventions include:

  • Assessing patients after a fall to identify and address risk factors and treat the underlying medical conditions.
  • Educating staff about fall risk factors and prevention strategies.
  • Reviewing prescribed medicines to assess their potential risks and benefits and to minimize use.
  • Making changes in the nursing home environment to make it easier for residents to move around safely. Such changes include putting in grab bars, adding raised toilet seats, lowering bed heights, and installing handrails in the hallways.
  • Providing patients with hip pads that may prevent a hip fracture if a fall occurs.
  • Exercise programs can improve balance, strength, walking ability, and physical functioning among nursing home residents. However, such programs do not appear to reduce falls.
  • Teaching residents who are not cognitively impaired behavioral strategies to avoid potentially hazardous situations is a promising approach.

Elderly Rights

Advocates for elderly rights and nursing home negligence attorneys at The Murray Law Firm encourage nursing home owners to implement fall intervention programs according to these CDC guidelines. By training staff on fall risk hazards and prevention strategies, implementing environmental safety features, and providing residents with proper exercise programs and behavioral strategies, many fall-related injuries and fatalities may be prevented.

By law, property owners and managers are required to protect residents legally on the premises from any foreseeable harm. This responsibility is paramount when overseeing the health and care of elderly and/or disabled residents who may not be able to care for themselves. Should a nursing home owner or manager fail in this duty, the victim and their family may elect to hold the facility civilly liable for any injuries or wrongful deaths, which occur as a consequence.

We’ve Recovered Millions for Our Clients…Contact us Now for a Free Consultation.

The Murray Law Firm has extensive and successful experience in representing victims of nursing home abuse and negligence and we offer our legal expertise, if desired.  We typically represent our Clients on a contingency agreement, which generally means that no fees or payments are owed until and unless we recover.  Anyone seeking further information or legal representation is encouraged to contact us via e-mail (click here) or call at 888.842.1616. Consultations are free and confidential.

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NightClubBars and nightclubs often employ security staff to oversee property access-control, prevent violence and protect patrons. These duties place nightclub security in potentially violent situations, giving security staff the opportunity to either escalate or deter violence.

The Global Campaign for Violence Prevention explores how proper nightclub security training programs may prevent violence:

Global Nightclub Violence Interventions 

In several countries, training programs have been developed to provide door staff with the necessary skills to perform their role. Such programs aim to raise awareness among door staff of how their own actions impact on customer behavior and to develop skills in customer relations and management. Components of training programs can include: conflict management (including deescalation techniques); appropriate searching methods; drug and alcohol awareness; civil and criminal law; health and safety at work; and emergency evacuation management. In Canada, the Safer Bars program…aimed to reduce aggression in bars in Toronto through the provision of training for bar owners and staff. The program showed a significant effect in reducing severe and moderate aggression in bars….

In the UK, use of door staff is often a condition of bar and nightclub licensing and basic door staff training is a requirement of employment….Now all door staff working in England and Wales must hold a licence issued by the National Security Industry Authority. Individuals with previous convictions for offenses such as violence and drug dealing are excluded, and all license holders must have undertaken training. Furthermore, in a predominantly male profession, women are being encouraged to train as door staff with free training for female door staff having been provided in London by the Security Industry Authority….

In the absence of similar legislation in New Zealand, a voluntary code of conduct and a training programme has been established by the New Zealand Security Association (NZSA). The NZSA was created to promote professionalism in the security industry, set minimum standards for its members, and develop and provide training….

In Sweden…the STAD project incorporated door staff training into wider measures to create a safer nightlife environment in Stockholm, such as the provision of late night transport. The evaluation found a 29% reduction in violent crime following implementation of the project.

In the UK, communication between door staff and other agencies working in nightlife has been increased in many areas through the development of Pubwatch schemes. These schemes bring together staff in bars and nightclubs, police and other agencies…within local areas and typically include the establishment of a dedicated radio network between members and a banning system to prevent persistent troublemakers from using bars and nightclubs.

There Future

The rapid expansion of nightlife environments in many countries and corresponding increases in alcohol-related problems such as violence has meant that the need for security in nightlife has increased. Huge demands can be placed on limited police resources during busy nightlife periods, and with door staff often outnumbering police in nightlife areas, their role in violence prevention is one that should be recognised and strengthened. By its very nature, the role of door staff means they are frequently placed in aggressive situations and without appropriate training and management, door staff may not only be ineffective at preventing violence but may actually act as a contributing factor. However, research has shown that door staff training programs can be effective in giving individuals the skills they require to carry out their role and in preventing violence. Further, registration schemes can give authorities the power to prevent those with histories of violence and other criminal activity from working as door staff, and to require training as a condition of employment. Local police, licensing officials and other agencies should work with door staff to ensure the added resource they can bring to maintaining safety and reducing violence in the night time environment is utilized to its full potential.

Read full report here.

The Murray Law Firm protects victims of nightclub security negligence and urges nightclub owners to implement proper security training programs to protect patrons. According to GCVP guidelines, security training may include: conflict management (including deescalation techniques); appropriate searching methods; drug and alcohol awareness; civil and criminal law; health and safety at work; and emergency evacuation management.

We’ve Recovered Millions for Victims of Nightclub Security Negligence…Contact us Now for a Free Consultation.

The Murray Law Firm has extensive and successful experience in representing victims of nightclub security negligence and we offer our legal expertise, if desired.  We typically represent our Clients on a contingency agreement, which generally means that no fees or payments are owed until and unless we recover.  Anyone seeking further information or legal representation is encouraged to contact us via e-mail (click here) or call at 888.842.1616. Consultations are free and confidential.

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Hotel Key CardLocation. Price. Amenities. These are items most travelers look for when selecting a hotel or motel. Requirements that may not make a traveler’s hotel wishlist are: bright lighting; surveillance cameras; 24 hour security; and room key-controlled entry to the property.

A CBS This Morning report warns, “Far too many people let their guard down when traveling, especially when it comes to their hotel.”

Read the full report for “a breakdown of everything you need to know about hotel safety in the U.S.”:

American Hotel Security is Lacking

Although 9/11 was a wakeup call for everybody, most officials in the hotel industry in the U.S. aren’t willing to spend money on security.

Hotels are filled with vulnerabilities: multiple entrances and exits, driveways, underground entries, spacious and busy lobbies, non-guests who eat at the restaurant and come in for conferences and events. But those risks are also the hotels’ livelihood: it’s not in a hotel’s best interest to scare away potential business by employing armed guards, installing metal detectors or X-rays, limiting entrances, or even checking IDs.

In fact, security experts don’t know of ANY hotel in the US that has implemented high-security measures that we see in Asia and the Middle East: metal detectors, explosive vapor devices, barriers in front of the hotel, screening of bags, screening under vehicles, or “hardening” glazing structures of windows and entranceways.

In general, the most an American hotel will do is implement increased security cameras, limit access into the building, require key cards to get to guest room floors, and train staff to be alert to odd behavior. Until recently, even security cameras or CCTV on guest room floors was considered taboo. The measures that have been implemented also help prevent petty crime and assault, so the hotels’ motives for doing so are manifold.

Most U.S. hotels are mid-market products  where you won’t see anything more than cameras for loss prevention and maybe locking perimeter doors. It’s the higher-end hotels that have implemented any significant measures—and much of that is to block out the riff-raff and ensure privacy.

Don’t Worry, Your Personal Information is NOT Stored on Key Cards

In 2003, the Pasadena police department police issued a warning about plastic hotel card keys. According to this message, a local Doubletreehotel had key cards that contained encoded personal information such as your name, a partial home address, the hotel room number, your check out date…and your credit card number. Well, simply put, hotels do not put your personal information on the card. Key cards actually use RFID technology, or a system that generates a code that the lock recognizes, NOT your room number.

According to Snopes.com, what happened was the police had been made aware that a keycard could be wiped clean and then reused by identity thieves to store information, NOT that the hotel had put the information on there. Any blank magnetic card could be used for this purpose. But the  information got released and became so widespread that the Pasadena police had to issue a retraction in 2009: “As of today, detectives have contacted several large hotels and computer companies using plastic card key technology and they assure us that personal information, especially credit card information, is not included on their key cards.”

HOWEVER…Hotel Locks Aren’t as Secure as You Think

A Mozilla developer and security researcher demonstrated the security in one of the most common key card locks in hotels. At the Black Hat Las Vegas security conference in July, Cody Brocious reverse engineered the locks by inserting a small, homemade device into the keycard lock, read the digital key that triggers the lock, and opened it. He explained that it was “stupidly simple” to exploit the locks. Onity locks can be found in more than 4 million hotel rooms around the world.

In September, there was a there was a string of break-ins at a Houston Hyatt in which the thief hacked the lock with a digital tool that triggered the door to open. The hotel itself took measures for a temporary fix by puttying the vulnerable port on the door. Since then Onity has been offering to replace the circuit boards for locks bought after 2005; older models will replace the locks for a fee, or will send a plastic plug to cover the port.

Hotel Safes Aren’t as Safe as You Think

The innkeeper liability laws limit how much the hotel is responsible for items left in your hotel room–even if it’s in the safe. Even worse, they’ll often charge you for the privilege of using that safe. The amount varies by state, but you can usually find the exact amount posted on the back of your hotel room door or in another conspicuous place. You’re better off storing valuables like passports in the front-desk safe. Confirm how much they’re liable for, and a get a written receipt of the items you’ve left there. If you have to leave items in the room, like a laptop, consider storing it in a slashproof bag. Then use a cable lock that holds the zipper shut and secures the bag to a stationery piece of furniture.

That Room with a View Can be Deadly

There’s not a fire department in the country that can easily fight a fire above the eighth floor, so ask for a lower floor.

Find out what kind of fire safety devices are in place. Every hotel should have hard-wired, single-station smoke detectors in each guestroom. Those more than three stories should have an automatic sprinkler system with a head in each room.

Check the US Fire Administration website for a database of fire-safe hotels.

You know the map on the door that show the nearest exits? It’s there for a reason. Then you actually have to find those exits. You should be able to locate at least two exits, in case one is blocked, and count how many doors there are between your room and the exits.

Keep your room key and a small flashlight in your shoes by your bed, in case you have to make a quick escape. Bottom line: a hotel fire is serious business, but there are steps you can take to make sure you’re as prepared as possible.

We’ve Recovered Millions for Our Clients…Contact us Now for a Free Consultation.

The Murray Law Firm has extensive and successful experience in representing victims of hotel and motel security negligence and we offer our legal expertise, if desired.  We typically represent our Clients on a contingency agreement, which generally means that no fees or payments are owed until and unless we recover.  Anyone seeking further information or legal representation is encouraged to contact us via e-mail (click here) or call at 888.842.1616. Consultations are free and confidential.

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