Deficiency-Free Surveys
How to Obtain a Deficiency-Free Survey
Communities that receive deficiency-free survey results work all year round to improve resident services, including meal service. To avoid deficiencies, you’ll want to make sure to follow these steps.
The first step is training. Staff should receive any state and/or corporate specific training before starting their position. Some states require staff to obtain food handler cards by proving that they understand basic food safety principles. Competency checklists identify what the staff member has been taught and that they were observed completing the task correctly.
Did you know CrandallSystems has trainings?
Now that staff have been trained and are proven to be competent, we can move onto monitoring. Quality assurance audits are key to proactively identifying concerns and fixing the concern before it becomes a bigger problem. For clinical, did you know that each community that is certified by Centers for Medicare Services (CMS) have access to the CASPER report (Certification And Survey Provider Enhanced Reports)?
For nutrition, there are 3 areas that relate to nutrition. The first is excessive weight loss. Next is new or worsening pressure injury. The third is UTI’s. If any of these indicators are above the state and/or nation average, the state will focus on the areas triggering.
It is prudent to complete a quality assurance audit if the community is above the average. Typically, if communities correct the issue before state survey arrives, they will not be cited.