Spokane Health & Rehabilitation: Frayed Cord Left Unrepaired - WA
Inspectors from the Washington State Department of Health documented the frayed cord on five separate visits between April 15 and April 22, 2025. The cord, which combined the call light and television controls into a single unit, had multiple colored wires exposed near the control end. Each time inspectors returned to the room, the cord was still there.
Resident 17, described in their March 2025 admission assessment as cognitively intact and fully capable of communicating their needs, told inspectors they had already reported the problem to staff. Nothing had been done about it.
When inspectors spoke with the facility's Maintenance Director on April 23, he explained the standard process: for non-urgent issues, staff fill out a work order on a computer. A spare call light was kept in a drawer at the nurses' station for situations where one wasn't working. He was then informed, during that same conversation, of what inspectors had been observing in Resident 17's room for the past eight days.
An hour later, he told inspectors he had replaced the call light. He also confirmed that the work order inspectors had just prompted was the first one he had ever received about it.
Nobody had filed one before.
He acknowledged that even though the break in the plastic housing hadn't penetrated the individual coating on the wires themselves, it was still a safety issue and should have been replaced when it was first noticed.
The Assistant Director of Nursing, interviewed the same morning, said she expected staff to notify maintenance when they spotted any problems and to contact management directly if the issue was urgent. She said Resident 17's call light should have been replaced as soon as staff were made aware of it.
That standard, by the facility's own account, was not met.
The call light is not incidental equipment in a nursing home room. It is the primary means by which a resident summons help, at any hour, for any reason, from pain to a fall in progress. A resident who has already told staff the cord is damaged and received no response has reason to wonder whether pressing it would accomplish anything at all.
Resident 17 was cognitively intact. They noticed the problem, reported it, and waited. The cord with its exposed wires sat in their room through eight days and five documented inspection visits while the work order system sat empty.
The inspection, conducted April 24, 2025, cited the facility for failing to maintain equipment in safe operational condition. The finding was rated at the lowest level of harm, reflecting potential rather than documented injury. The deficiency affected one resident.
What the inspection record doesn't resolve is how many staff members walked past that cord, or were told about it directly, and decided it wasn't urgent enough to open a computer and type a work order.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Spokane Health & Rehabilitation from 2025-04-24 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 30, 2026 · Our methodology
SPOKANE HEALTH & REHABILITATION in SPOKANE, WA was cited for violations during a health inspection on April 24, 2025.
Inspectors from the Washington State Department of Health documented the frayed cord on five separate visits between April 15 and April 22, 2025.
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.