F0580

K

Failure to Notify POA and Providers of Significant Changes in Condition

Albuquerque, New Mexico Survey Completed on 03-20-2026

Penalty

No penalty information released

Summary

The deficiency involves the facility’s failure to notify resident representatives and providers of significant changes in condition for two residents. For one resident with traumatic hemorrhage of the right cerebrum, carotid artery aneurysm, convulsions, and a cognitive communication deficit, the face sheet and POA documents identified the spouse as POA and first emergency contact, and the son as second emergency contact and secondary POA. Social services documentation and nursing notes showed that this resident explicitly stated that her husband should be the first person notified of any changes in condition and her son the second. Despite this, multiple SBAR forms documented repeated changes in condition, including abnormal vital signs with unresponsiveness, new swallowing issues, a positive COVID test, swallowing difficulties, a fall with head injury, an altercation with another resident, a seizure, and another fall. In each of these events, staff notified only the resident’s daughter‑in‑law, identified as the resident representative, and did not notify the husband or son as emergency contacts/POA.

Interviews further confirmed the pattern of non‑notification of the appropriate decision‑makers for this resident. The son reported that the facility did not notify him after any of the resident’s changes in condition and that he learned of these events from the resident representative instead. The husband/POA stated he did not recall being notified by the facility regarding any of the changes in condition and did not know who the facility contacted. The resident representative stated that staff began contacting her instead of the husband and son, sometimes because they did not answer the phone, and acknowledged that this practice bothered the son. The Unit Manager stated that facility nursing staff were required to call the POA and emergency contact for any change in condition and that if a family member onsite was not the POA, staff should still notify the POA. She acknowledged that nursing staff should have contacted the resident’s husband or son regarding the changes in condition, even when the resident representative was present in the facility.

For the second resident, who had dementia with behavioral disturbance, chronic respiratory failure with hypoxia, chronic CHF, and hypoglycemia, and who was documented as full code with all interventions, the facility failed to notify a provider when the resident exhibited an acute change in condition. Nursing progress notes documented that in the early morning hours, the resident was mouth breathing with gurgling sounds in the deep throat, had non‑productive coughing, an oxygen saturation of 92% on 3 liters of oxygen, and was uneasily aroused by tactile/verbal stimuli, with abnormal lung sounds including bilateral upper lobe rhonchi and diminished lower lobe sounds. The nurse recorded that the primary care physician was made aware via a non‑emergent in‑house communication log for further evaluation and treatment, and that the oncoming nurse would be informed. Later that morning, the nurse was called to the resident’s room and found the resident unresponsive, with CPR initiated and a code blue performed by EMS, and the resident was pronounced dead.

Additional interviews and documentation clarified that the nurse practitioner considered the information placed in the non‑emergent provider logbook inappropriate for that communication channel and stated that staff should have called a facility provider and 911 immediately regarding the resident’s status, rather than using the non‑emergent log. The DON stated that the first time she was made aware of the situation was when the code blue was called and that staff were required to notify a provider for any change in condition; review of the on‑call provider log showed no calls for this resident on the relevant dates. A CNA reported that when she arrived, the resident was not responding or opening her eyes, was coughing with gurgling sounds, and appeared very pale, and that she and another CNA could not obtain a pulse before summoning the nurse and initiating the code blue. The nurse who cared for the resident that morning stated she obtained but did not document vital signs, recalled an oxygen saturation of 88% on 2 liters improved to 92% on 3 liters, noted coughing with inability to expel mucus, and believed the resident was at baseline, so she did not call the on‑call provider and instead wrote in the non‑emergent log. The oncoming nurse stated she was told the resident was not awake or alert enough to receive morning medications, did not see the resident until notified by the CNA that the resident was not breathing, and stated that if a sternal rub was necessary, the nurse performing it should have called the provider. These actions and inactions led surveyors to identify an Immediate Jeopardy related to failure to notify providers and representatives of changes in condition.