Failure to Supervise Identified Elopement-Risk Resident Leading to Unauthorized Exit
Penalty
Summary
The facility failed to provide appropriate supervision to prevent elopement for a resident who had been formally identified as an elopement risk and not safe for unsupervised community access. The resident was admitted with multiple medical and psychiatric diagnoses, including generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, substance use disorders, gait and mobility abnormalities, unsteadiness on feet, encephalopathy, and a history of falling. An elopement risk review completed shortly after admission documented that the resident was at risk for elopement, and a community survival skills assessment indicated the resident was not capable of unsupervised outside pass privileges. Nursing documentation noted the resident required constant redirection due to wandering the halls and entering other residents' rooms. The resident’s care plan identified elopement risk, including attempting to leave the facility without a responsible escort and wandering behaviors. On the day of the incident, multiple staff observed the resident exhibiting escalating exit-seeking and pacing behaviors. In the late afternoon, the resident attempted to leave through the 2nd floor back stairwell door, triggering the alarm, and was redirected back to his room by social services staff. Staff reported that later that afternoon and early evening, the resident was restless, pacing back and forth from hallway to hallway, dining room to his room, and was described as trying to escape using the back door stairwells. Despite these behaviors and the resident’s known elopement risk status, supervision was provided through a rotating CNA hallway/dining room watch system, and at the time of the actual elopement, there was no CNA specifically monitoring the hallway because the nurse was passing medications there. Staff interviews indicated that although there was an expectation that a staff member continuously monitor the hallway and dining room, this was not occurring at the moment the resident exited. Around the early evening, the 2nd floor back stairwell alarm sounded as the resident pushed through the door. A CNA heard another staff member telling the resident to stop and then heard the alarm, and the LPN on duty reported running after the resident down the stairwell and out the back door. The resident, wearing only a sweater, pants, and shoes without socks in cold, snowy weather, ran away from the facility despite the nurse’s verbal attempts to redirect him and brief physical attempt to hold him. The nurse, not wearing a coat, returned to the building due to the weather, and staff then began searching the surrounding area. The resident later reported that no one was watching him when he left, that he ran as fast as he could, and that he walked and ran for about an hour in the cold before sheltering in an apartment lobby, where a bystander called the police. Hospital records documented that the resident had been walking outside in shoes without socks, developed right foot pain, and was found to have callous and slight skin redness, for which he received Tylenol, Flexeril, and socks before being returned to the facility. The facility’s elopement binder already listed the resident as an elopement risk with his picture and face sheet prior to this event.
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