Failure to Administer Medications Within Required Timeframes
Penalty
Summary
The deficiency involves the facility’s failure to administer a resident’s scheduled medications within the facility’s required timeframes. A resident with diagnoses including hemiplegia and hemiparesis, major depressive disorder, and anxiety disorder, and with intact cognition per a quarterly MDS assessment, was ordered acetaminophen 1000 mg twice daily for pain, hydroxyzine 50 mg twice daily for anxiety, and rabeprazole 20 mg twice daily for heartburn. The facility’s medication administration policy required medications to be given within one hour before or after the ordered time, and the facility’s liberalized medication pass times defined specific time ranges for early morning, A.M., afternoon, P.M., and HS doses. Review of the MAR and the facility’s medication administration audit report showed multiple instances where the resident’s medications were administered significantly outside the ordered times. On several dates, morning doses scheduled for 7:00 A.M. were not given until early afternoon, and evening doses scheduled for around 7:30 P.M. were not administered until after midnight. These late administrations affected acetaminophen, hydroxyzine, and rabeprazole on multiple occasions. During an interview, the Regional Director of Clinical Operations confirmed that the medications listed on the audit were administered outside the scheduled timeframes. The resident was not available for interview.
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