Annual survey and I'm scared

Specialties Geriatric

Published

I'm a rn in a ltc facility we have had our annual survey and i feel that i may have done something that caused a tag. If I did, how does admin handle and will I get wrote up or fired? Do the surveyors tell who caused the tag?

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Specializes in Leadership, Psych, HomeCare, Amb. Care.

They point out the specific deficit that they are citing for. Most problems are system issues & procedural issues, not specific performance issues. In other words, there may have been an issue with the way a med was given & documented, but 5-10 other nurses (or everybody) are all doing it the same way.

It is unlikely you, in particular, did something to trigger a citation. I've never heard of a nurse being singled out & punished over an inspection issue.

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Specializes in Certified Med/Surg tele, and other stuff.

You said annual survey, so this could be just that and nothing more.

Good luck. It's never fun to be grilled. I spent 3 hrs with a stone faced surveyor last month.

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So glad that is all behind me!! However, I have been grilled MULTIPLE times by surveyors of every type, and I refused to get anxious/nervous about it.

Funny story.

Working on a step-down unit, had a pt in isolation. The surveyor came to our unit and decided that the isolation situation was the one she wanted. We sat with our knees practically touching at the nurses' station while she reviewed the chart. About 6-8 people in the entourage, including my immediate supervisor and the DON. Surveyor was licking her fingers while turning pages in the pt's chart. (this was looong ago - actual paper charts). This was a pet peeve of mine, everyone around knew that! SOOOO, I eventually leaned in very close to the nice surveyor lady and said - Please don't lick your fingers and touch the chart.

Everyone around us gasped! The nice lady looked at her fingers and then at me and said that she just never thought about it before!!

Long story shortened - a few days later, I saw the DON in the cafeteria, and she said that the surveyor was impressed that I pointed this out to her, that I was concerned about infection control enough to point it out, despite the fact that I was being grilled at the time!

BTW - our unit got high marks!!

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Specializes in Functional Medicine, Holistic Nutrition.

I work as a state surveyor. To answer your question, surveyors do identify staff that are involved in particular citations or in the care of a patient for which there is a citation. Staff are assigned unique identifiers, just as patients are, for the purposes of confidentiality of the report (the reports themselves are public record, but confidentiality of patients must still be observed). The administrators are given a roster of the patients that are reviewed, as well as any employees that will be referred to in the report. How administrators choose to handle the information in the report varies. I have seen both clinicians and administrators fired over survey results, but it is an uncommon occurance and even more rare for clinicians to be fired. It is a little more common to see managers/administrators fired because they retain a higher level of responsibility for the overall quality of care that is delivered. Surveyors do look for overall trends in the care that is being provided, but I have given citations due to one particular incident/record in which the situation is severe enough that it warrants a citation. When I see a facility firing clinicians over survey findings, it is usually a red flag because it most often means that the underlying system issues (the policies and procedures, administrative control, staff training and education, etc.) are not being addressed. In my opinion, except in the cases of obvious negligence or repeat individual clinician practice issues, administrators should address survey findings by educating staff and not taking immediate disciplinary action.

What do you think you did to cause a citation?

BTW- Good job to the poster who mentioned the infection control issue to the surveyor!

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Specializes in LTC.
So glad that is all behind me!! However, I have been grilled MULTIPLE times by surveyors of every type, and I refused to get anxious/nervous about it.

Funny story.

Working on a step-down unit, had a pt in isolation. The surveyor came to our unit and decided that the isolation situation was the one she wanted. We sat with our knees practically touching at the nurses' station while she reviewed the chart. About 6-8 people in the entourage, including my immediate supervisor and the DON. Surveyor was licking her fingers while turning pages in the pt's chart. (this was looong ago - actual paper charts). This was a pet peeve of mine, everyone around knew that! SOOOO, I eventually leaned in very close to the nice surveyor lady and said - Please don't lick your fingers and touch the chart.

Everyone around us gasped! The nice lady looked at her fingers and then at me and said that she just never thought about it before!!

Long story shortened - a few days later, I saw the DON in the cafeteria, and she said that the surveyor was impressed that I pointed this out to her, that I was concerned about infection control enough to point it out, despite the fact that I was being grilled at the time!

BTW - our unit got high marks!!

I can't stand when people lick their fingers to turn pages! I don't get why they need to do it.

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Specializes in LTC, ER, ICU, Psych, Med-surg...etc....

I bought me some of those finger thingys so I would not be tempted to lick them bad boys! You don't know who has handled all those pages...YUK!

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I can't stand when people lick their fingers to turn pages! I don't get why they need to do it.

Traction on the paper :)

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