Failure to Maintain Secure and Proper Medication Storage
Penalty
Summary
Surveyors identified a deficiency in the facility’s safe medication storage practices involving unsecured medication carts, expired medications, and personal items stored with medications. During an observation, a medication cart located near the nurse’s station was found unlocked and unattended, and an LPN confirmed that the cart was not locked and should have been. In a subsequent medication storage observation, a nurse’s personal drinking cup was found stored in the bottom right-hand drawer of the 100-hall medication cart. The same observation of the East/West medication storage room vaccine refrigerator revealed an opened box containing five prefilled syringes of Hepatitis B vaccine with an expiration date of 05/19/25, indicating the vaccines were expired. The DON confirmed that the vaccines were expired and should be disposed of and that personal drinks or items should not be on the medication carts due to infection control concerns. These practices were noted as having the potential to affect all 62 residents in the facility, as identified by the census provided by the Administrator on 12/01/25, and were cited as failures to ensure drugs and biologicals were stored in locked compartments and maintained according to accepted professional principles.
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