Valley on Columbia: Thank you for a job well done with the Health and Life Safety Code Survey! Please enjoy a sub sandwich meal today, Friday, March 4. Meals will be available in the staff break room throughout the day, across from the Human Resources office.
Valley on Columbia Health and Life Safety Code Survey:
The North Dakota Department of Health was onsite this week at Valley on Columbia for our Annual Health Survey. It had been since January of 2020 – a full two years since our last survey. There were 9 surveyors – 6 for the regular survey, 2 that are in training, and 1 whose task was infection control.
The surveyors were very complimentary of our staff, the environment, and the care we provide. I think the pandemic really brought home the concept that we are all in this together from the North Dakota Department of Health to the long term care communities. There were a number of comments thanking us all for what we do. A couple of extremely sincere and heartfelt comments really stood out in our visits over the course of this morning – “You don’t know how lucky you are to have the staff and environment that you have here” and “you should be very proud of the work you do here.” It really speaks to how stressful it has been for everyone throughout the pandemic. Surveyors are in the middle of this issue every week, seeing many of our peers across the state struggle with staffing and meeting resident needs and having to balance regulations with the reality of the pandemic.
We had our exit late yesterday morning and received the following areas of concern that will most likely lead to a citation:
- F609 – Reporting of Potential Mistreatment, Abuse, Neglect – we investigated a resident allegation within the regulatory 2 hour timeframe, met and chose not to report, and met with our team following business day as a team to make sure we didn’t need to file with the state. The surveyor concluded that we should have filed an initial report with the Department of Health.
- F692 – Hydration – observations of staff not offering fluids with care interactions with residents.
- F880 – Infection Control – so many things went so well with this area in our survey but it is a large task. The concerns were observations of not following doffing/sanitizing procedures correctly upon leaving resident room with transmission-based precautions, an issue with a dressing change, inconsistency of cleaning of shared equipment.
On Tuesday, the North Dakota Department of Health Life Safety Surveyors was on site for our Annual Life Safety Code Survey. We received no deficiencies.
Congratulations to all at Valley on Columbia for the care you provide each day! Great job everyone!