F0656

D

Failure to Assess and Care Plan Bed Rail Use Leading to Fatal Entrapment

Austin, Texas Survey Completed on 03-31-2026

Penalty

Fine: $27,378

Summary

The deficiency involves the facility’s failure to develop and implement a comprehensive, person-centered care plan addressing the use of bed rails and the risk of entrapment for a resident with severe cognitive impairment. The resident was an elderly female with diagnoses including a left femoral neck fracture, severe dementia, repeated falls, cognitive communication deficit, and a need for assistance with personal care. Her admission MDS showed a BIMS score of 03, indicating severe cognitive impairment, and documented that she required substantial staff assistance with bed mobility and was completely dependent on staff for transfers from bed to chair. Despite these needs, her care plan, focused on ADL self-care performance deficit related to unspecified dementia, only specified staff assistance for bed mobility and encouragement to participate, and did not mention bed rails or any risk of entrapment.

The facility obtained a signed bed rail consent form from the resident’s family member, which detailed multiple potential dangers of bed rail use, including suffocation and various forms of entrapment between the rails and mattress or bed components. However, from the time of admission through the period reviewed, there was no documented assessment for bed rail safety, no physician order for bed rails, and no addition of bed rail use or entrapment risk to the resident’s care plan. Maintenance staff reported that bed rails were installed on the resident’s bed at the request of a charge nurse, without a documented work order date and under the assumption that all clinical steps had been completed. The facility’s policy required that alternatives be attempted first, that the IDT assess the resident for entrapment risk, obtain informed consent, verify equipment compatibility, and update the care plan, but these steps were not carried out for this resident prior to installation.

The resident was later found unresponsive in the early morning hours, seated on the floor on the right side of the bed with her head and neck positioned between the side rail and the mattress. A CNA reported that the resident had been resting calmly during an earlier round and was later observed partially out of bed with her head pinned between the assist bar and the mattress. The LVN responding to the CNA’s report observed the resident in a sitting position off the mattress with her head resting between the side rail and mattress, and CPR was initiated before EMS arrived and pronounced her deceased. The county medical examiner reported bruising and abrasions around the neck and jawline and hemorrhaging in the neck muscles, consistent with being trapped between the mattress and bed rails, and indicated that the likely cause of death would be strangulation on the bed rails or asphyxiation on the mattress. Subsequent observation of the bed showed 1/3 bed rails of the same make and model as the bed frame and a low air loss mattress that, while initially leaving little space between the mattress and rails, could be compressed enough to create significant space between the mattress and rails.