Investigation
Reveals Concerns Due to Unsanitary Kitchen Conditions in
Long-Term Care Facilities
Unlike the front-page attention received for incidents involving elder abuse and neglect, a California nonprofit news organization that focuses on public health, consumer, and environmental issues recently completed a five-month investigation on food handling and the risk for foodborne illness from unsanitary kitchens in long-term care facilities.
The report was based on inspection results, federal data, and interviews with residents from across the country and raises a red flag regarding what it called persistently dangerous and unhealthy conditions.
One example given in the report occurred in a Wisconsin nursing home in 2018 where 29 residents and 32 staff members became ill from a norovirus outbreak. Federal inspectors found that the facility’s “kitchen staff repeatedly failed to check the sanitizer levels in the dishwasher and didn’t know that the injector was clogged.”
According to the investigation, unsafe food handling was the “third most frequently cited violation” in the nearly 16,000 nursing homes nationwide. In 2018, over one-third of America’s nursing homes received citations for violations of federal regulations regarding the safe storing, preparing, and serving of food.
According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the figures in the report do not include assisted living centers. Those communities do not have a nationwide centralized data collection system, and they are licensed by the individual states where they are located, with each state having its own set of standards.
According to a nurse and professor at the University of California in San Francisco who has researched nursing home quality, “There is a huge underreporting of food issues.”
Compliance Perspective
Failure by a facility to implement and require staff to follow strict protocols associated with safe, sanitary food storage, handling, preparation, and serving may place residents in immediate jeopardy for harm, in violation of state and federal regulations.
Discussion Points:
- Review policies and procedures regarding the maintenance of equipment used in food preparation and clean-up; protocols for maintaining a sanitary, pest/insect free kitchen area where food is prepared and served; and sanitary protocols for safe storing, handling, preparing and serving of food.
- Train staff regarding the policies and procedures for maintenance of a safe, sanitary kitchen environment and the protocols for safe, sanitary food storage, preparation, and serving to prevent outbreaks of infectious conditions like the norovirus.
- Periodically audit maintenance records on equipment used to store, prepare, and serve food to residents and also on records for pest and insect control. Routinely observe for compliance with sanitary practices in the kitchen and in the processes for checking food temperatures and delivering meals to residents.
