North Auburn Care: Dishwasher Sanitation Failure - WA
That finding sits at the center of a April 2025 federal inspection at the Auburn nursing home, located at 2830 I Street Northeast. It is not a complicated story. It is a short one, and that is part of what makes it difficult to explain away.
The facility uses a low-temperature dishwasher that relies on chemical sanitation rather than heat. Chlorine, at a target level of 200 parts per million, is what kills the bacteria and viruses that would otherwise ride dirty dishes from one resident's meal to the next. When inspectors observed the kitchen on April 17 at 9:47 in the morning, the dietary manager, identified in the report as Staff F, dipped a chlorine test strip into the dishwasher water. The strip came out white. White means no chlorine. Staff F tested it again. White. A third time. White.
Breakfast dishes were already running through the machine.
Staff I, the dishwasher operator, told inspectors the sanitizer test had come back low before breakfast service started. When asked who had been informed, the answer was direct: no one. Staff F, standing nearby during the same interview, confirmed that Staff I should have reported the problem and that the log used to document daily sanitation checks was missing.
What followed was a straightforward repair. Staff F called the company that services the dishwasher, was told to prime the sanitizer bucket by toggling a switch on the machine's side, and by 10:52 that morning, chlorine levels had returned to acceptable range. The fix took under an hour once anyone knew to do it.
The more troubling detail came after. Staff F told inspectors that the sanitizer bucket had been replaced the previous day at 3:00 in the afternoon, but that nobody had known a new bucket required priming to work. Staff F said it was reasonable to conclude the sanitizer had not been functioning since then. That puts the window at roughly nineteen hours, covering an afternoon, an evening meal, and a full breakfast service, during which dishes used by residents were cycled through a machine doing nothing to sanitize them.
Inspectors asked Staff F to provide documentation showing that dietary staff had been trained on how to replace the sanitizer bucket and what steps to take if sanitizer levels came up inadequate. Nothing was provided.
The violation was cited at a level of minimal harm or potential for actual harm, meaning inspectors did not document that residents became ill. That designation reflects what could be confirmed, not necessarily what occurred.
What the inspection record does confirm is a gap that ran the length of a full day's meals. A piece of equipment failed. A worker noticed before the morning rush and said nothing. A manager could not locate the log that was supposed to show the checks were being done. And when the question of training came up, there was no paperwork to show anyone had been taught what to do when the machine stopped working.
The dietary manager's own framing of the target, "I try to keep it at 200 parts per million," is a reasonable description of attentiveness. The morning of April 17 was not an example of it.
North Auburn Care has not been contacted for comment. For information on the facility's plan to correct this deficiency, CMS directs the public to contact the nursing home or the Washington State survey agency directly.
The residents who ate breakfast that morning used dishes that had passed through a sanitizer-free machine. Whether any of them got sick is not recorded in the inspection report. What is recorded is that one employee knew, before the meal, and the information went nowhere.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for North Auburn Care from 2025-04-21 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.
Corrections: We strive for accuracy in everything we publish. If you believe any fact in this article is incorrect, please contact us with details, and we will review and correct it promptly.
Professional review: All content reviewed by Christopher F. Nesbitt, Sr., NH EMT & BU-trained Paralegal.
Last verified: October 29, 2026 · Our methodology
North Auburn Care in AUBURN, WA was cited for violations during a health inspection on April 21, 2025.
That finding sits at the center of a April 2025 federal inspection at the Auburn nursing home, located at 2830 I Street Northeast.
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.