This is a must for both plaintiff's lawyers representing injured nursing home residents and for the lawyers defending nursing homes in these causes of action. Authors James T. O'Reilly and Katharine Van Tassel begin by reviewing the responsibilities and liabilities of management, nurses and physicians. This extensive reference then examines liability and regulatory issues from both defense and plaintiff's perspectives, including specific topics such as drug interaction and polypharmacy concerns, ulcers and infection problems, fall-related injuries, wandering and escape issues, assault and abuse, dehydration, choking, and more.

New topics have been added, including:

• Expanded description of the medical-legal issues facing both plaintiff's and defense lawyers who litigate nursing home cases
• Guidance on how nursing home administrators can enhance regulatory compliance to both avoid litigation and improve quality of care
• New explanations of the changing types of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) surveys, including the tag system, and how these surveys can affect liability
• Updates to CMS regulations that govern quality of care, an overview of the growing use of evidence-based care and clinical practice guidelines to establish the standard of care
• Discussion of the conflict over the legal impact of the use of arbitration agreements
• Detailed information on how to assess patterns of injuries to decide whether to accept a case
• Additional causes of action and defenses that can be pled, and how they should be pled, in light of changes in the law
• Issues pertaining to states' pay rates and the possible wrongful discharge of a resident due to insufficient funding
• How to penetrate the complexity of LLCs associated with nursing homes, and more

The expanded second edition explains the medical-legal issues that are essential to litigating a nursing home case from both perspectives. Of note, new sections have been added that describe how nursing homes can enhance regulatory compliance to both avoid litigation and improve quality of care.