Monument Healthcare: No Infection Preventionist - NE
The facility had no qualified infection preventionist designated to run its infection prevention and control program. That was among ten deficiencies inspectors cited during a complaint inspection on August 16.
Infection control programs exist because nursing homes are high-risk environments. Residents share air, share staff, share common spaces. Many are elderly, immunocompromised, or recovering from surgery or illness. Without someone qualified to oversee that program, gaps in practice can go unnoticed and uncorrected until residents get sick.
The deficiency was classified at Scope and Severity Level D, meaning inspectors found it isolated in nature, with no actual harm documented at the time of the visit. But the classification also means inspectors determined there was potential for more than minimal harm. In regulatory terms, that is not a clean bill of health. It is a finding that something was missing and that the missing thing mattered.
The infection preventionist role is not a formality. The person in that position is responsible for tracking infection rates across the facility, identifying patterns, training staff on hand hygiene and isolation procedures, and flagging outbreaks before they grow. A nursing home without someone in that role is a nursing home where those functions may not be happening, or may be happening inconsistently, or may be happening without the training and oversight the role requires.
Monument Healthcare did not dispute the finding. The facility reported a correction date of September 10, 2025, roughly three and a half weeks after the inspection.
What happened in the weeks or months before inspectors arrived, when the position was apparently unfilled or undesignated, is not detailed in the inspection record. The report does not say how long the gap existed, whether the role had ever been formally filled, or what, if any, infection control functions were being performed in the absence of a designated preventionist.
It also does not say what the other nine deficiencies were.
That context matters. A single infection control citation at a facility with otherwise clean findings reads differently than the same citation appearing alongside nine others. The inspection record notes ten total deficiencies during this visit, but the public narrative released with this report addresses only the infection preventionist finding.
Scottsbluff sits in the western Nebraska panhandle, a regional hub for a largely rural stretch of the state. Residents of Monument Healthcare, like residents of most rural nursing homes, may have limited alternatives if they or their families grow concerned about care quality. Distance from other facilities, from family, and from regulatory scrutiny can all shape how quickly problems get identified and addressed.
The facility's response, a correction date filed within weeks, suggests the deficiency was treated as something that could be fixed quickly once cited. Whether it was, and whether the person now designated as infection preventionist is genuinely qualified for the role, is something the inspection record cannot confirm. That determination would require a follow-up visit.
Federal inspectors do not always return quickly after a standard correction. The burden of demonstrating compliance typically falls on the facility itself, through documentation submitted to the state survey agency.
For the residents living at Monument Healthcare during the period when no qualified infection preventionist was in place, the inspection report offers no individual accounting. No resident is named. No specific lapse in practice is described. The finding is structural, a gap in the program, not a documented incident of illness or outbreak. That is what the Level D classification reflects.
But structural gaps are how outbreaks start. The infection preventionist is the person who notices that three residents on the same hall developed urinary tract infections in the same week, or that a particular nursing assistant's residents have higher rates of skin infections than others, or that the facility's hand hygiene compliance has slipped. Without that person, those patterns go untracked.
Monument Healthcare has until September 10 on its own reported timeline to demonstrate that gap is closed. Whether it stays closed is a different question.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Monument Healthcare and Nursing Center from 2025-08-16 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 17, 2026 · Our methodology
Monument Healthcare and Nursing Center in Scottsbluff, NE was cited for violations during a health inspection on August 16, 2025.
The facility had no qualified infection preventionist designated to run its infection prevention and control program.
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.