New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is expanding his practice of installing hidden cameras in nursing homes to include facilities in western New York, according to local news outlets.

Nursing homes received another quality drubbing last month after the Government Accountability Office revealed that state inspectors often understate deficiencies, including those about malnutrition, bedsores and abuse, in their annual facility inspection reports.

One group was notably absent when the cheering erupted over the introduction of a bill that would ban arbitration agreements from nursing home admission contracts: providers.

A new Senate bill seeks to eliminate providers' ability to bind residents to pre-dispute arbitration agreements.

The Elder Justice Act (HR 1783) received a heap of accolades from senior care advocates and industry representatives at a hearing on Capitol Hill Thursday.

What are the most important lessons from the trial of the Manganos, the New Orleans facility owners who didn't evacuate for Hurricane Katrina and were recently acquitted of negligent homicide charges?

For three weeks, spanning August and September, much of the national nursing home community was glued to goings-on in a place they had never heard of before: St. Francisville, LA. Or at least they should have been.

Exactly six months ago in this space I wrote that the trial of Sal and Mabel Mangano could turn out to be an excellent opportunity for them, and nursing homes in general, to shine. Dire circumstances often are the best proving ground for joyous turnarounds.

Many observers have questioned why government prosecutors would charge a pair of Louisiana nursing home owners for criminally negligent homicide after an unprecedented natural disaster such as Hurricane Katrina.