On October 19, 2010, a Rockford, Illinois man was admitted to a local hospital. Emergency room staff found seven large bed sores on his body; some spanned several inches and had advanced to stage IV, the most severe. One wound, according to emergency room notes, was infected and covered his entire tailbone.

The man, identified in inspection reports only as "R1," had developed all of his wounds since arriving at Rockford Nursing & Rehab Center, a 67-bed facility in Rockford, Illinois. Bed sores -- also known as pressure ulcers -- are lesions that typically form when a patient has limited mobility, and her ...