Unauthorized Resident Photographs Texted to Non-Staff Person
Penalty
Summary
The deficiency involves the facility’s failure to protect three cognitively impaired residents’ rights to respect, dignity, and privacy when a nurse took and transmitted their photographs without knowledge or consent. Facility policy titled “Videotaping, Photographing and Other Images of Resident,” revised February 2021, stated that transmitting unauthorized images of any resident through email, internet, or social media is considered a violation of resident rights. Despite this policy, Nurse #1 used a personal cell phone on two dates to photograph residents and send those images via text message to a non-staff individual. According to the facility’s internal investigation and information received from the Board of Registration of Nursing (BORN), Nurse #1 initially denied taking and sending the photographs but later admitted to doing so. Photographs obtained from a cell phone text thread provided by BORN showed that Nurse #1 had sent images of three residents to a non-staff person. The Assistant Director of Nursing (ADON), after reviewing the photographs on Nurse #1’s phone, was able to identify the individuals in the images as the three sampled residents. The residents involved were all cognitively impaired and dependent on staff for care. One resident, admitted in June 2025 with diagnoses including dementia, had a quarterly MDS dated 12/05/25 indicating severe cognitive impairment and dependence on staff for care needs. A second resident, also admitted in June 2025 with traumatic brain injury and vascular dementia, had a quarterly MDS dated 12/05/25 showing moderate cognitive impairment and dependence on staff. The third resident, admitted in June 2025 with vascular dementia and failure to thrive, had a quarterly MDS dated 10/31/25 indicating severe cognitive impairment and dependence on staff. The ADON described the photographs as showing one resident standing fully clothed in a hallway, another sitting on the floor in a hallway wearing a johnny and brief, and another lying in bed wearing a johnny and covered with bed linens. All three residents were non-interviewable due to cognitive impairment.
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