Delaware nursing home responsiveness requirements

A reportable incident (abuse, neglect, mistreatment, financial exploitation, elopement, significant injury, and the other events listed at § 3201-9.8) must be communicated to the Division immediately, defined as within 8 hours of the occurrence; separately, every employee or regular service provider must report orally immediately and in writing within 48 hours.

Reportable incidents shall be communicated immediately, which shall be within eight hours of the occurrence of the incident, to the Division of Long Term Care Residents Protection. The method of reporting shall be as directed by the Division.

Every nursing facility must arrange for one or more licensed physicians who can be called in an emergency, and must post those physicians' names and telephone/fax numbers at all nurses' stations.

All nursing facilities shall arrange for one or more licensed physicians to be called in an emergency. Names, telephone and fax numbers of these physicians shall be posted at all nurses' stations.

For facilities not covered by the statutory staffing minimums, an RN or LPN must be on duty at all times on the first and second shifts, and an RN or LPN must at minimum be ON CALL when no nurse is present on the third shift — which is Delaware's closest thing to a duty to be reachable by telephone overnight. NOTE THE CARVE-OUT: § 3201-5.4.1 sends facilities that ARE subject to 16 Del. C. §§ 1161–1165 to the statute instead, so 5.4.2 is not the universal rule.

5.4.2.3 At a minimum, a registered nurse or licensed practical nurse shall be on duty at all times during the first and second shifts. 5.4.2.4 At a minimum, in the absence of a nurse on the third shift, a registered nurse or licensed practical nurse shall be on call.

Delaware puts the telephone-access right in statute rather than in the licensure chapter: each resident must have access at any reasonable hour to a telephone where the resident may speak privately, and § 3201-3.7 makes compliance with § 1121 a licensure condition.

Each resident shall have access at any reasonable hour to a telephone where the resident may speak privately.

Facilities must develop and maintain an all-hazard emergency plan for evacuation and shelter-in-place, submit it digitally to the Division and DEMA on the Division's template, address staffing shortages in it, train all shifts on it, post evacuation routes at each nursing station, and refile it with each license application and annual renewal.

Each facility shall develop and maintain all-hazard emergency plans for evacuation and sheltering in place. The plan must be submitted to the Division and DEMA in a digital format and it must conform to the template prescribed by the Division. The all-hazard emergency plan must include plans to address staffing shortages and facility demands.

The facility must be equipped with a resident call system meeting the current Guidelines for Design and Construction of Health Care Facilities, with a narrow exemption for intermediate care facilities serving only developmentally disabled residents.

The facility shall be equipped with a resident call system which meets the current standards of the Guidelines for Design and Construction of Health Care Facilities. An intermediate care facility serving only developmentally disabled residents shall be exempt from this regulation.

Delaware writes NO state-specific QAPI/quality-assurance rule — I searched the full chapter text for 'quality assurance', 'quality improvement', 'performance improvement' and 'QAPI' and found zero hits — so the QAPI obligation reaches Delaware nursing facilities only through § 3201-1.2, which adopts all of 42 CFR Part 483 Subpart B (which contains 483.75) as Delaware's own regulatory requirement.

The provisions of 42 CFR Ch. IV Part 483, Subpart B, requirements for Long Term Care Facilities, and any amendments or modifications thereto, are hereby adopted as the regulatory requirements for skilled and intermediate care nursing facilities in Delaware. Subpart B of Part 483 is hereby referred to, and made part of this Regulation, as if fully set out herein.