Failure to Maintain Food Safety Standards and Proper Food Storage
Penalty
Summary
The facility failed to store, prepare, distribute, and serve food in accordance with professional standards for food service safety, as evidenced by multiple observations and interviews. Staff, including the Regional Maintenance Director and the Director of Nursing, were observed entering the main kitchen and kitchenette areas without wearing required hairnets, despite facility policy mandating hair restraints when working with food. During meal service, food was being prepared and served while staff were not in compliance with hair restraint policies. Surveyors found food items that had been removed from their original containers and were not labeled with use-by dates, as well as a dented can of jellied cranberry sauce in circulation. In the kitchenette freezer and refrigerator, there were uncovered and unlabeled food items, including opened containers of ice cream and sundae cups with ice crystals, as well as expired and undated food. The refrigerator and freezer temperature logs were incomplete, with several days missing recorded temperatures, and there was no clear assignment of responsibility for monitoring these temperatures. Additionally, the kitchenette cupboards contained unwrapped candy, dried substances, opened and expired food items, and food without proper labeling. Interviews with dietary, nursing, and housekeeping staff revealed confusion and lack of clarity regarding who was responsible for cleaning and monitoring the kitchenette areas, with no established policy or procedure in place for these tasks. These deficiencies had the potential to affect nearly all residents in the facility.