North Auburn Care: Medication Storage Failures - WA
The medication had been ordered for Resident 28. When that order was discontinued, the pharmacy dispensed additional bags anyway, on two separate dates after the cancellation. The bags stayed in the refrigerator. Nobody destroyed them. Nobody called the pharmacy.
A corporate nurse identified in the inspection report as Staff C acknowledged during an interview that staff should have contacted the pharmacy the moment the extra medication arrived and destroyed the bags once there was no longer a valid order. "Staff should dispose of discontinued medications as soon as possible," Staff C told inspectors. "We try to do it once a week."
Once a week is the standard the facility described for itself. The 15 bags sitting in the refrigerator suggest that standard wasn't being met.
Staff C also told inspectors that when a resident is discharged, their medications should be removed from the medication cart within 24 hours. The gap between what staff said should happen and what inspectors found in the refrigerator was the central problem the report documented.
The concern with stockpiled discontinued medications is straightforward: drugs that no longer have a valid order have no business being accessible in a clinical setting. An antibiotic administered to the wrong resident, or at the wrong time, or when the clinical rationale for it no longer exists, carries real risk. A licensed practical nurse interviewed during the inspection noted that the tuberculosis testing solution in the facility should be dated when opened and that vaccine medications should be administered or destroyed. The principle applied equally to Resident 28's antibiotics. They were neither administered nor destroyed.
The refrigerator finding was not the only medication problem inspectors documented.
On three separate days, a bottle of vision supplements and a bottle of multivitamins sat on the overbed table of Resident 52, unsecured and in plain view. Inspectors observed them at 12:41 PM on one visit, then again at 7:38 AM and 8:31 AM on two subsequent visits. The medications were still there each time.
The Assistant Director of Nursing, identified as Staff E, confirmed what inspectors saw and acknowledged that the resident should have had those medications stored in a lockbox. Staff E also acknowledged that staff had found the medications sitting out and had not reported it. "Staff should, but did not, report when they found medications at the bedside," the inspection report noted, attributing the acknowledgment to Staff E directly.
Three separate observations across multiple days. No lockbox. No report from the staff who saw it.
The inspection report classified both violations under a harm level of minimal harm or potential for actual harm, with few residents affected. That classification reflects the regulatory framework inspectors use, not a judgment that the underlying lapses were trivial. A resident with access to unsecured medications, or a facility holding 15 bags of a discontinued antibiotic with no clear plan to dispose of them, represents a breakdown in the basic controls that exist to prevent the wrong drug from reaching the wrong person.
North Auburn Care, located at 2830 I Street Northeast in Auburn, was inspected on April 21, 2025. The deficiencies were cited under Washington state administrative code governing medication storage and handling.
Staff C, the corporate nurse, described the disposal standard in the clearest terms available in the report: as soon as possible, once a week, within 24 hours of discharge. Each benchmark pointed toward a system that was supposed to be working. The 15 bags in the refrigerator pointed toward one that wasn't.
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.
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Last verified: October 27, 2026 · Our methodology
North Auburn Care in AUBURN, WA was cited for violations during a health inspection on April 21, 2025.
The medication had been ordered for Resident 28.
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.