Washington Co. Public Health

The agency failed to follow a Plan of Care established and periodically reviewed by a physician or notify the physician of the need to vary frequency of visits or inability to perform treatments/services as originally ordered on the Plan for Care for 2 of 7 sampled patients.

The agency failed to do the following: 1) ensure patients had the right to be informed about changes in the plan of care and refuse care in advance of or during treatment with respect to the disciplines providing care and frequency of visits (G0434); 2) ensure staff investigated complaints related…

The agency failed to do the following: 1) ensure home health aides successfully demonstrated competency to a registered nurse prior to performing any task for a patient above and beyond basic skills (G0768); 2) ensure a registered nurse assigned all home health aides specific, individualized tasks…

The agency failed to ensure 1 of 3 sampled home health aides (Staff D), performed tasks requiring extra skills exceeding the level of basic home health aide skills for 2 of 9 sampled patients (Patients #2 and #8), had documented evidence of a successful return competency demonstration signed off by…

The agency failed to ensure registered nurses provided individualized and specific written patient care instructions to agency home health aides for 6 of 9 sampled patients receiving home health aide services (Patients #2, #3, #4, #6, #8 and #9).

The agency failed to ensure patients had the right to be informed about changes in the plan of care with respect to frequency of visits for 1 of 9 patients sampled with home health aide services (Patient #2).

The agency failed to ensure agency staff investigated complaints of care that failed to be furnished for 1 of 9 sampled patients (Patient #2) who received home health aide services.

The agency failed to ensure the documentation of complaints and the resolution of a complaints made by agency patients for 1 of 9 sampled patients (Patient #2) who received home health aide services.

The agency failed to ensure staff took action to resolve complaints and prevent further violations for 1 of 9 sampled patients (Patient #2).

The agency failed to ensure accurate and thorough completion of all pertinent components of comprehensive assessments for 2 of 7 sampled patients (Patients #3 and #4).

The agency failed to ensure home health aides provided care to agency patients only as ordered by the physician in the Plan of Care and/or as directed in writing by the skilled professional assigning the home health aide to the patient for 5 of 9 sampled patients receiving home health aide services…

The agency failed to ensure home health aides reported patient concerns to a registered nurse for 2 of 9 sampled patients receiving home health aide services (Patients #2 and #6).

The Clinical Manager agreed the agency's emergency preparedness policy and procedures failed to identify the need for agency staff to review the patient's individual emergency preparedness plan with each comprehensive assessment.

The agency failed to ensure the development of a procedure to inform State and local officials of homebound patients in need of evacuation due to an emergency situation.

The Clinical Manager reviewed the agency's emergency preparedness policy and procedures with the surveyor and agreed the policy lacked a procedure for contacting State and local officials of the inability to reach any on duty staff in the event of an emergency.

The Clinical Manager reviewed the agency's emergency preparedness policy and procedures with the surveyor and agreed the policy lacked a procedure to address the use of State and federally designated healthcare professionals to address surge needs in the event of an emergency.

The agency had participated in one table top exercise on 3/1/2019. On 12/16/2020 at 2:09 PM, during an interview, the Clinical Manager reported she was unable to find documentation of agency staff participation in any emergency preparedness exercises for 2018 and only one table top exercise in…

The agency failed to perform complete and accurate drug regimen reviews with corresponding comprehensive assessments for 1 of 2 sampled patients with resumption of care comprehensive assessments (Patient #5).

The agency failed to ensure agency staff accurately completed of all components comprising the Plan of Care, including identifying all supplies/equipment used by the patient for 2 of 7 sampled patients (Patients #2 and #6).

The agency failed to ensure training in emergency preparedness to all individuals providing services under arrangement, consistent with their expected roles.

The agency failed to ensure completion of the resumption of care comprehensive assessment within 48 hours of the agency's knowledge of return home from an inpatient facility for 1 of 3 sampled patients requiring a resumption of care assessment (Patient #5).

The agency failed to ensure the accurate completion of all components comprising the Plan of Care and/ or failed to ensure the Plan of Care contained current, accurate information for 2 of 3 patients with home visits (Patients #2 and #8).

The agency failed to administer treatments and services only as ordered by the physician for 1 of 7 sampled patients (Patients #2).

The agency failed to ensure that registered nurses communicated and coordinated care and services with a patient's physician and aides providing care for 1 of 7 sampled patients (Patient #2).