Failure to Provide Sufficient Staff for Behavioral Health Supervision
Penalty
Summary
The facility failed to ensure that sufficient staff with appropriate competencies and skills were available to meet the behavioral health needs of residents requiring one-on-one supervision. For three residents with exit-seeking behaviors and other behavioral health concerns, the facility relied on family members or outside agency sitters to provide necessary supervision, rather than consistently providing this care through facility staff. In several instances, the facility contacted family members to sit with residents or to arrange for private sitters, and when family could not provide supervision, the facility considered alternate placement for the residents. One resident with dementia and a history of exit-seeking was observed wandering without required safety devices and was only provided one-on-one supervision when family or an outside agency sitter was available. Another resident with multiple medical and behavioral diagnoses, including agitation and aggression, required one-on-one supervision due to exit-seeking and aggressive behaviors. The facility communicated to the family that it could not provide ongoing one-on-one care and that the family would need to arrange supervision or consider alternate placement. During periods when family members were unavailable, staff provided one-on-one care only temporarily, and the facility continued to seek alternate placement. A third resident with dementia and a history of falls was admitted and subsequently found outside the facility attempting to leave. The care plan called for one-on-one supervision until alternate placement could be found, but the facility again relied on family to provide this supervision. The facility's approach to residents requiring intensive behavioral supervision was to request family or outside agencies to provide care, and only provided staff supervision for short periods, indicating a lack of sufficient staff to meet these residents' behavioral health needs as required.