North Ridge Health and Rehab: Emergency Contact Failure - MN
Federal inspectors rated the lapse immediate jeopardy, the most serious classification available under Medicare oversight, meaning the failure created a situation likely to cause serious harm or death.
The resident at the center of the finding is identified in inspection records only as R223. At some point before the March 7 inspection, he had lost the capacity to make his own medical and care decisions. A power of attorney had been designated to make those decisions for him. That POA paperwork arrived at the facility sometime the previous month.
It landed with the social service designee, a staff member identified in the report as SS-A.
SS-A knew what she was supposed to do with it. During an interview with inspectors at 2:06 p.m. on the day of the survey, she said she had received the POA paperwork and was supposed to update the emergency contacts list when she got it, so that staff would know who to reach if decisions needed to be made about R223's care. She acknowledged it did not happen.
The nurse manager, identified as RN-J, confirmed the same understanding during a separate interview at 12:53 p.m. R223 was no longer able to make his own decisions, RN-J told inspectors, so staff were expected to go to the POA when questions arose about his care. RN-J confirmed that SS-A was the person responsible for updating the contact list so staff would reach the right person.
Nobody had.
That gap matters in ways that are hard to overstate in a nursing home setting. When a resident with no decision-making capacity develops a sudden change in condition, or when care staff face a question about a procedure or a transfer, they reach for the emergency contact list. If that list still shows someone without legal authority to decide, the facility is either making calls that go nowhere useful or, worse, getting direction from someone who no longer has the standing to give it.
Inspectors asked the facility to produce a policy on emergency contacts and powers of attorney. No policy was provided.
That absence is its own finding. A facility that cannot produce a written policy on how it handles POA documentation does not simply have a paperwork gap. It has a structural one. When the social service designee received R223's paperwork, there was no documented procedure to ensure the update happened, no checklist, no supervisor sign-off, no system to catch the failure before it sat for weeks.
North Ridge Health and Rehab operates at 5430 Boone Avenue North in New Hope, a suburb northwest of Minneapolis. The March inspection covered health standards, and this deficiency appeared on pages five and six of a six-page statement of deficiencies.
The inspection report does not say whether any harm came to R223 during the weeks his contact list was wrong. It does not say whether staff ever needed to reach his POA during that period, or what happened if they tried. What it records is the condition that existed: a man who could not speak for himself, and a facility that had not yet told its own staff who could speak for him instead.
The social service designee knew the task. The nurse manager knew the task. The paperwork existed. The right person to call existed. The only thing missing was the three minutes it would have taken to update a list, and whatever system should have made sure those three minutes happened.
Inspectors left without receiving the policy they requested.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for North Ridge Health and Rehab from 2025-03-07 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
Additional Resources
Data source: This article is based on inspection data downloaded directly from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) via Medicare.gov. CMS releases inspection reports in bulk; we publish the findings as documented by state surveyors in the official Form CMS-2567 Statement of Deficiencies.
Plan of correction: The CMS report we receive does not include the facility's plan of correction. Facilities submit plans of correction separately to state survey agencies and those responses may not be reflected in CMS data at the time of publication. The absence of a plan of correction in our data does not mean one was not filed. Readers who want information about corrective steps taken are encouraged to contact the facility directly or their state survey agency.
Corrections may have occurred: Inspection reports reflect conditions observed on the date of the survey. Facilities may have implemented corrections, staffing changes, additional training, or other remediation since the report was issued. We report what CMS provides and encourage readers to seek current information from the facility.
Editorial process: Inspection findings are extracted from CMS source documents and synthesized using AI, reviewed for factual accuracy against the original report by our editorial team.
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Professional review: All content reviewed by Christopher F. Nesbitt, Sr., NH EMT & BU-trained Paralegal.
Last verified: November 10, 2026 · Our methodology
NORTH RIDGE HEALTH AND REHAB in NEW HOPE, MN was cited for violations during a health inspection on March 7, 2025.
The resident at the center of the finding is identified in inspection records only as R223.
Health inspections identify deficiencies that facilities must correct. Violations range from minor documentation issues to serious safety concerns. Review the full report below for specific details and facility response.