The second most commonly cited F-Tags state surveyors’ issue is the F689 deficiency otherwise known as “Free of Accident Hazards/Supervisions/Devices”.
Do you want to know how you can avoid this deficiency in your long-term care or SNF community? Compliance expert Rebecca DeRousse explains how you can save yourself the hassle, financial loss, and negative impact on your marketability by avoiding this tag.
This tag has a lot of components to it including:
The CMS F-tag states that "The facility must ensure that the resident environment remains as free of accident hazards as is possible, [and that] each resident receives adequate supervision and assistance devices to prevent accidents."
Below, you’ll find practical ways you can help avoid citations for your facility for many of these key components.
Experienced nursing home administrator and compliance expert, Rebecca DeRousse states, "We know that falls are not always avoidable, particularly in the population we deal with. There are a lot of factors that can result in falls. Falls will happen but it's important to try to avoid them by addressing identified hazards or risks, and then the resident's risk factors, including their need for supervision, care, and assistive devices."
One such intervention that has been proven to reduce bed falls by 77% among high fall-risk residents is the Empresa FloorBed. Lowering to just 3.9" from the floor with width-extension options and even-plane high safety mats, it’s reducing bed falls and related injuries in skilled nursing facilities and LTC communities just like yours.
The safest way to ensure your senior care community avoids this deficiency is to designate your campus as a smoke or tobacco-free site. If this is not possible then here are some parameters to implement which could help you avoid citation.
Rebecca's top tips for avoiding this deficiency are:
According to Rebecca DeRousse, "We have always felt like"elopement" was someone leaving the campus and walking down the road but actually the definition is the resident leaves the premises or safe area without the facility's knowledge and supervision." It doesn't just refer to leaving the grounds, but also to accessing non-resident areas, or outside areas like courtyards or parking lots which are still on the campus, but no one knows that they are there.
It is certainly worth noting that a deficiency will not be cited in this area if the facility follows the proper procedures even if there is a negative outcome such as an overdose in cases involving residents with substance use disorder.
Ways to avoid this deficiency include:
We talk a lot about how assistive devices and equipment are here to prevent hazards, but they can also cause or contribute to them. If they are improperly used or improperly maintained, then they can pose a serious risk. Some areas to focus on to help you avoid being tagged with this deficiency are:
Entrapment and bed rails are ongoing anxieties for long-term care professionals. There is a fine line between safety-conscious interventions and restraints, and we always need to make sure we are on the right side of it. Remember to always evaluate devices on a resident-by-resident basis because what may be suitable for one may be entirely inappropriate for another. We also have to remember to consistently document interventions we have implemented and why, then continuously evaluate whether they are still the right choice for that resident.
If you found this article helpful and want to know more about guarding against frequently cited F-Tags from CMS, then you might like our recently recorded, on-demand webinar by compliance expert Rebecca DeRousse, Top 10 cited F-Tags and how to avoid them. This webinar is free to access and covers ten of the most commonly cited federal tags for long-term care and skilled nursing facilities.
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F-tags, ftags, and CMS tags all refer to the same thing. They are the citations you can be tagged with upon a state surveyor discovering deficiencies in your residential care facility. Short for Federal Tags, they are essentially labels that indicate a senior care community is not meeting the CMS requirements. This might not directly indicate a deficiency in terms of quality of care though. There are times when failing to properly report on the standards of care will result in costly fines and impact your marketability too.
Being cited with a deficiency by the state can affect health care providers in several ways, mainly financially. F-Tag citations can carry heavy fines and they will also affect your nursing home's marketability if the tag becomes a matter of public record. After all, who wants to put their mom into a home which has been tagged as deficient in some way?
Being tagged after nursing home surveys can also affect morale. In these post-covid days of staffing shortages, financial difficulties, and rapidly changing legislation, it can be a metaphorical kick in the teeth for your front-line caregiving team to be told that all their hard work just hasn't been good enough to satisfy the surveyors. The inevitable plan of correction and follow-up surveys will add more strain and stress onto all members of the staff and can prove disruptive for the residents.
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