Signs You Won't Pass A Survey

[Adele_Michal7]

My coworkers and I were talking about state surveys. A question came up: What are the top signs you're working in a facility that won't pass it's upcoming survey?

I know it might sound like a weird topic but I am interested in hearing answers. Thanks!

[bluegeegoo2, LPN]

One sign you won't pass is when you see your pharmacy consultant shaking her head muttering to herself and madly scribbling in her notebook every time she opens a med cart drawer.

[kbrn2002, ADN, RN]

Our last survey the cites were mostly documentation related and most of that was at a level not preformed by staff nurses, so that much is out of your hands.

Preventable things are infection control, proper procedure for med administration and ADL's, make sure your med carts are cleaned out and all old/expired meds are gone. It seems every year they [state] focuses on something else and last year was accucheck procedure and insulin expiration dates, the year before was food temps.

Rarely if ever are facilities tagged on staffing as during state visits staff seem to magically materialize out of thin air. Too bad they can't actually staff like that all the time.

[Adele_Michal7, ASN, RN]

I mainly love how the higher ups panic at the last hour, barking at us to do things that should already be automatically done all year

[kbrn2002, ADN, RN]

I mainly love how the higher ups panic at the last hour, barking at us to do things that should already be automatically done all year

I do find it kind of funny that when orienting new nurses we always say "this is how we do it except when state is here." Heck, if we did everything the way state wants us to nothing would ever get done.

Last year when they were focusing on accucheck procedure we had to follow some ridiculous 13 step procedure that takes about 4-5 minutes per blood glucose check. Considering I have between 9-13 to do you can imagine how well that would have worked. It was pretty hilarious watching all of us nurses trying to sneakily get all of the accuchecks done before state wanted to watch med pass. I think only one nurse got caught and had to 1 or 2 with state watching.

[Julius Seizure]

Nobody said sex offenders couldn't be admitted to nursing homes. However, systems and care planning must be put into place to prevent this specific patient population from harming other residents.

Nothing's worse than walking in on a younger male resident as he's inappropriately touching a very demented elderly female. Yes, this did happen...

Yikes thats disturbing. I can see why extra precautions would need to be in place.

Didn't mean to assume, i am ignorant of the rules about this so it just seemed like you were saying that a sex offender was an inappropriate admission period (I have zero LTC experience). Thanks for clarifying!

[suzw]

What is the procedure the state wants you to follow for glucose checks? I must be doing something wrong, I have no clue how I could make a glucose check take that long!

[Adele_Michal7, ASN, RN]

Update: we failed twice

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

Sorry to hear that. What were the deficiencies, if you don't mind my asking?

[Adele_Michal7, ASN, RN]

Sorry to hear that. What were the deficiencies, if you don't mind my asking?[/

Without giving too many details, it was two different issues- one during each of the first two surveys.

We fixed issue number one, and when they came back to do the re-survey, they found a separate issue; and decided to do a full 1 week survey all over again.

This time around (#3) I haven't gotten any answers yet but it's looking all bad.

[Pca_85revived, LPN]

Sorry to hear that. In my years, I've only experienced one deficiency free survey, if that makes you feel any better.