Ohio nursing home responsiveness requirements

Two-tier mandatory reporting: listed staff who know or suspect resident abuse, neglect, exploitation or misappropriation must report it to the facility, and the nursing home administrator must report it to the Director of Health; no time deadline is stated anywhere in the section.

No nursing home administrator licensed or temporarily licensed under Chapter 4751. of the Revised Code, and no administrator of a residential care facility, who knows or suspects that a resident has been abused, neglected, or exploited, or that a resident's property has been misappropriated, by any individual used by a long-term care facility or residential care facility to provide services to residents, shall fail to report that knowledge or suspicion to the director of health.

Chapter titled 'Abuse or Neglect in Long-Term Care Facilities'; it governs how ODH investigates abuse, neglect and misappropriation allegations and the hearing/nurse aide registry consequences, but it sets no initial reporting deadline for facilities.

The home's medical director must make medical care available to residents who have no physician of their own and must make emergency medical care available to all residents whenever their personal physicians are not readily available.

Make available medical care for residents not under the care of their own physicians and to make available emergency medical care to all residents, provided their personal physicians are not readily available.

On an accident causing injury with potential need for physician intervention, a significant change in the resident's physical, mental or psycho-social status, or a need to significantly alter treatment, the administrator or designee must immediately inform the resident, consult the resident's physician, and consult the medical director instead if that physician is not available, and notify the resident's sponsor or authorized representative. This is the state's coverage rule for when the attending physician cannot be reached.

Immediately inform the resident, consult with resident's physician or other licensed health professional acting within the applicable scope of practice, or the medical director, if the resident's physician or other licensed health professional is not available, and notify the resident's sponsor or authorized representative, with the resident's permission, and other proper authority, in accordance with state and local laws and regulations when there is:

Ohio does not require an RN on site around the clock; instead it requires that a registered nurse be on call whenever one is not on duty in the home, and that the on-call RN's name be posted where residents, families and staff can see it.

Each nursing home will have a registered nurse on call whenever one is not on duty in the home. The nursing home will post the name of the registered nurse who is on call in a place easily accessible to residents, residents' families or sponsors, and staff.

The director of nursing must be an RN on duty five days a week, eight hours a day predominantly between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., and the home must deliver a minimum daily average of two and one-half hours of direct care per resident per day from nurse aides, RNs and LPNs combined.

The director of nursing or co-directors of nursing will be on duty five days per week, eight hours per day predominantly between the hours of six a.m. and six p.m. to direct the provision of nursing services.

Residents have a statutory right, on reasonable request, to private and unrestricted communication with family and others, and that right expressly includes reasonable access to a telephone for private communications.

Reasonable access to a telephone for private communications

Residents have the right to have all reasonable requests and inquiries responded to promptly, which is the closest Ohio statutory hook for a duty to respond to a resident's communication (Ohio has no rule setting a clock for an RN or physician to return a telephone call).

The right to have all reasonable requests and inquiries responded to promptly;

The administrative-code counterpart to the statutory telephone right: the administrator must ensure each resident has access to a telephone or a video conferencing device that meets the resident's needs, in an area where calls can be made in a manner that ensures privacy. The page previously cited only the Revised Code for this duty.

Each resident has access to telephone or a device for video conferencing services that meet the needs of the resident in an area where calls can be made in a manner which ensures privacy

Every operator must keep a current written disaster preparedness plan on site at all times, train all staff, consultants and volunteers on it, and include evacuation procedures, biannually renewed transfer agreements, missing-resident procedures with law enforcement notification, severe weather procedures, and an off-site paper and electronic copy of the plan.

Each operator will provide, maintain, and keep current a written disaster preparedness plan to be followed in case of emergency or disaster. A copy of the plan will be readily available at all times within the nursing home.

The home must notify the ODH director by phone or email whenever an emergency or disaster involving the home causes an interruption affecting resident health and safety.

Each nursing home will notify the director by phone or electronic mail when there is an interruption affecting the resident health and safety due to an emergency or a disaster involving the nursing home.

The resident's identification record must carry the name and address of the nearest relative or legal guardian, and that contact information must be reviewed and updated every six months so the home can give notice in an emergency, quarantine or closure.

the contact information of the nearest relative or legal guardian is obligated to be reviewed and updated every six months to ensure appropriate notification in the event of an emergency, quarantine, or closure.

Every nursing home must maintain a working call signal system that is within the resident's reach (directly or via an assistive device matched to the resident's physical and cognitive capacity) and that transmits calls from resident rooms and from toilet and bathing facilities.

Each nursing home will have a call signal system in good working order, is accessible directly or through assistive devices assessed to be most appropriate for the resident's physical and cognitive capacity, and is within reach of the resident that, at minimum, provides for the transmission of calls from resident rooms and toilet and bathing facilities.

Each home must run an ongoing QAPI program covering all systems of care and management practices, involving the medical director, administrator, DON and named department heads, gathering resident and representative feedback, and operating a quality assurance committee that meets at least quarterly to monitor care, do root cause analysis on incidents, track infection control, identify trends and implement corrective action plans.

Each nursing home will establish and maintain an ongoing quality assurance and performance improvement (QAPI) program to address all systems of care and management practices, including clinical care, quality of life, and resident choice.