Failure to Properly Label and Secure Medications
Penalty
Summary
Facility staff failed to ensure that drugs and biologicals were properly labeled and stored according to accepted professional standards. During medication administration, a licensed nurse prepared medications for a resident and left them unattended on a tray inside the resident's room while retrieving the resident, leaving both the medications and the resident's roommate unsupervised in the room. This resulted in six medications being left unattended for approximately one minute. Additionally, inspection of the Wisteria medication cart revealed two opened bottles of medication, Fluticasone Propionate and Salmeterol, that were not labeled with the date they were opened. One bottle was marked with an arrival date that exceeded the facility's 30-day discard policy, while the other was still within the acceptable timeframe. Both the nurse and the Director of Nursing confirmed that the bottles were not labeled with open dates, as required by facility policy.