Failure to Provide Annual Communication Training to Staff
Penalty
Summary
The facility failed to provide annual communication training to four staff members, including a housekeeper, a certified medication aide (CMA), a certified nursing assistant (CNA), and a licensed vocational nurse (LVN). Review of personnel records for these employees showed no evidence of communication training being completed within the previous 12 months, despite the facility's policy requiring annual training on this topic. The HR Coordinator was responsible for initiating monthly in-service trainings and providing them to department heads, who were then expected to present the trainings to their staff. However, the records indicated that the required communication training was not completed for these staff members. Interviews with the HR Coordinator, DON, and Administrator confirmed that the process for delivering and verifying in-service trainings relied on department heads to present the material and the HR Coordinator to verify completion. Despite this process, the communication training was not documented as completed for the identified staff. The facility's policy specified that an educational calendar should include communication as a required topic each year, but this was not reflected in the training records for the affected employees.