Kansas nursing home responsiveness requirements

The facility must have written anti-abuse policies and must investigate every allegation of abuse, neglect or exploitation and report it immediately both to its own administrator and to the state agency, keeping a written record of each investigation.

(3) ensure that all allegations of abuse, neglect, or exploitation are investigated and reported immediately to the administrator of the facility and to the Kansas department of health and environment; (4) have evidence that all alleged violations are thoroughly investigated, and shall take measures to prevent further potential abuse, neglect and exploitation while the investigation is in progress;

Each resident must remain under a physician's supervision with a designated backup physician when the attending is unavailable, telephone orders must be signed within seven days, and an emergency transfer hospital must be designated at admission — but Kansas states no express 24-hour physician availability requirement.

(a) The facility shall ensure that both of the following conditions are met: (1) The medical care of each resident is supervised by a physician. (2) Another physician supervises the medical care of residents when the resident's attending physician is not available.

A licensed nurse must be on duty 24/7 and an RN at least eight consecutive hours a day seven days a week, and when an LPN is the only licensed nurse on duty an RN must be reachable by telephone at once.

(3) A licensed nurse shall be on duty 24 hours per day, seven days per week. ... (B) If a licensed practical nurse is the only licensed nurse on duty, a registered nurse shall be immediately available by telephone. (4) At least two nursing personnel shall be on duty at all times in the facility. Personnel shall be immediately accessible to each resident to assure prompt response to the resident call system and necessary action in the event of injury, illness, fire, or other emergency.

Every adult care home resident has the right to reasonable telephone access in a location where the call cannot be overheard, and to privacy during telephone communications.

(n) Telephone. The administrator or operator shall ensure that each resident is afforded the right to reasonable access to a telephone in a place where calls can be made without being overheard.

The facility must keep a non-coin-operated emergency telephone accessible on each nursing unit with a posted list of emergency contact names and numbers beside it, and must maintain a detailed written emergency management plan coordinated with area governmental agencies, backed by written service agreements and an annual drill.

(e) Telephone. The facility shall maintain at least one non-coin-operated telephone accessible to residents and employees on each nursing unit for use in emergencies. The facility shall post adjacent to this telephone the names and telephone numbers of persons or places commonly required in emergencies. ... (n) Disaster and emergency preparedness. (1) The facility shall have a detailed written emergency management plan to meet potential emergencies and disasters, including, fire, flood, severe weather, tornado, explosion, natural gas leak, lack of electrical or water service, and missing residents. (2) The plan shall be coordinated with area governmental agencies.

Every nursing facility must have a functional resident call system, with a call button or pull cord at each bed producing audible and visual staff notification, signals that run until manually reset at the point of origin, wireless-system call recording with a repeat/escalation no longer than every three minutes, and weekly testing under the preventive maintenance program.

(1) Call system. Each nursing facility shall have a functional call system that ensures that nursing personnel working in the resident unit and other staff designated to respond to resident calls are notified immediately when a resident has activated the call system. ... (E) All emergency and nonemergency call signals shall continue to operate until manually reset at the site of origin. ... (H) The nursing facility's preventative maintenance program shall include the testing of the call system at least weekly to verify operation of the system.

The facility must maintain a quality assessment and assurance committee (director of nursing, a facility-designated physician, and at least three other staff) that meets at least quarterly and develops and implements corrective action plans.

(p) Quality assessment and assurance. (1) The facility shall maintain a quality assessment and assurance committee consisting of these individuals: (A) The director of nursing services; (B) a physician designated by the facility; and (C) at least three other members of the facility's staff. (2) The quality assessment and assurance committee shall perform the following: (A) Meet at least quarterly to identify issues with respect to what quality assessment and assurance activities are necessary; and (B) develop and implement appropriate plans of action to correct identified quality deficiencies and prevent potential quality deficiencies.