Review of Nursing Facility Staffing Requirements at Beverly Healthcare of Reading

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

The objective of our review was to determine whether Beverly Healthcare of Reading was in compliance with Federal and State staffing laws and regulations for nursing homes.  Based on our review of 92 direct care employees, Beverly complied with Federal staffing laws and regulations, but did not comply with State staffing requirements.  Beverly did not obtain a current Pennsylvania State Police background check for 4 direct care employees, did not obtain the background checks for 13 direct care employees within the required timeframes, and did not schedule sufficient staff to provide 2.7 hours of direct care per resident per day for 7 of the days reviewed.  We recommended that Beverly:  (1) restrict the four direct care employees from working directly with the residents until it obtains valid background checks; (2) review and strengthen its internal controls to assure that it obtains valid background checks on all new direct care employees, and prohibits new employees from working directly with the residents if the background checks are not received within the required timeframes; and (3) review and strengthen its internal controls to assure that it schedules direct care employees to ensure that there is enough nursing staff on duty to provide 2.7 hours of direct care per resident per day.  Beverly concurred with our findings.