Failure to Provide Effective Communication Training to Direct Care Staff
Penalty
Summary
The facility failed to ensure that three out of five randomly selected direct care staff members received effective communication training, as required. During the survey, the Director of Nursing (DON) was unable to provide documentation that Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs) hired on specific dates had completed the necessary communication training. One CNA had no record of any communication training since hire, another had not completed the training since hire, and a third had only completed a dementia communication course several years prior, with no evidence of annual communication training. The facility's training records, maintained through the Relias online platform, did not show completion of the required modules for these staff members. The surveyor requested the facility's policies and procedures for new employee and annual training, as well as documentation of completed training for selected staff. The facility provided a procedure outlining the use of Relias for onboarding and annual training, listing communication-related modules as part of the mandatory training plan. However, despite these procedures, the training transcripts for the three CNAs did not reflect completion of the effective communication training, indicating a lapse in the implementation or documentation of the facility's training program.