Failure to Label, Date, and Discard Expired Food Items in Nourishment Rooms
Penalty
Summary
Surveyors observed that staff failed to consistently label and date food items and discard expired products in two of three nourishment rooms. Specifically, in the 300/400 hall nourishment room, there was an opened container of coffee creamer labeled with a name but no date, a container with noodles labeled with a resident's name but no date, a gallon of iced tea not labeled with the product or resident name and with a best by date that had already passed, and an opened bottle of prune juice not labeled with a resident's name. In the 500/600 hall nourishment room, a container of leftover pudding was found without any label or date. These findings were confirmed during interviews with the Dietary Manager, who stated that all items were expected to be labeled and expired items discarded. Further interviews revealed that although kitchen staff were supposed to check the nourishment rooms twice daily, the Assistant Dietary Manager admitted to not checking the rooms on a specific day when she was working as a dietary aide and forgot to perform the check. The Director of Nursing and the Administrator both stated that staff were educated to label and date residents' items in the nourishment rooms and that this was covered during orientation. However, the observations indicated that these procedures were not consistently followed, resulting in the presence of unlabeled and expired food items.