Failure to Ensure Dignified Care and Homelike Dining Environment
Penalty
Summary
The deficiency involves failures to honor residents’ rights to dignity, respect, and a homelike environment. Surveyors observed an LPN walking down a resident hallway with earphones in, connected to a phone with music audible from approximately six feet away, and then entering a severely cognitively impaired resident’s room and providing incontinence care, dressing, and transfer assistance while continuing to wear the earphones and play music. Another resident reported that staff were always on the phone when providing care and that earbuds could be seen in staff members’ ears. The facility’s Resident Rights policy required that residents be treated with kindness, respect, and dignity, and the employee handbook explicitly prohibited the use of cell phones and headphones/Bluetooth devices in resident care areas or while providing care. Staff and leadership interviews confirmed that cell phone and earbud use during resident care was not allowed. The deficiency also includes the facility’s failure to provide meals on reusable dishware and utensils as requested by residents, instead serving food on Styrofoam and using plastic cutlery and cups for an extended period. Resident council minutes documented residents’ requests for regular plates and bowls rather than plastic or Styrofoam, and residents later reported that they knew the dishwasher was not in use when plastic cutlery began to be used and that plastic cutlery did not feel homelike. Dietary staff reported that the dish machine had been without soap and rinse chemicals for over a month, and that the facility had not had the required chemicals for about two months. The Dietary Manager stated the dish machine worked but lacked soap and rinse because the new owners did not want to use the previous, more expensive brand and were changing vendors, resulting in dishes being washed by hand and meals being served on disposable dishware. The Administrator later stated it was not appropriate to suspend use of the dish machine due to not purchasing sanitizer and rinse and that he or she had not been aware that Styrofoam plates and cups were being used instead of reusable dishware.
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