Liberty Nursing Center: No Dedicated Director of Nursing - OH
That nurse, identified in inspection records as RN #300, was the facility's sole MDS nurse. She was responsible for the Minimum Data Set assessments and for maintaining care plans for all 67 residents in the building. Those are federally required clinical documents that drive how each resident gets treated, day to day. She was doing all of that, full time, when the facility designated her the acting Director of Nursing.
Nobody hired a replacement. Nobody brought in an interim from outside. The facility gave one nurse two full-time jobs and left it that way for more than a month.
Federal inspectors arrived on August 19. The administrator confirmed that morning that the DON had been gone since July 22 and that RN #300 had been designated to cover the role. The administrator did not dispute the arrangement. The DON's absence, the administrator said, stemmed from a medical emergency.
The Assistant Director of Nursing, interviewed two days later, said the same thing. The DON had a medical emergency and hadn't been back. RN #300 was covering. The ADON confirmed that RN #300 was still performing her MDS duties at the same time, and that she was the only MDS nurse the facility had.
When inspectors spoke directly with RN #300 on August 25, she confirmed all of it herself. She was the facility's only MDS nurse. The facility had asked her to serve as acting DON during the absence. She was doing both.
The Director of Nursing role at Liberty, according to the facility's own job description, carries responsibility for planning, organizing, developing, and directing the day-to-day functions of the entire nursing department. It means ensuring that nursing personnel are following their job descriptions. It means running the department. It is, by the facility's own description, a primary-purpose position, not a secondary one.
RN #300 already had a primary-purpose position.
The violation was cited under the federal requirement that nursing homes maintain a registered nurse on duty eight hours a day and designate a full-time Director of Nursing. The word "designate" carries weight here. Handing a title to someone already working a separate full-time job is not the same as filling the role. Inspectors found the facility had not designated a dedicated RN to serve as full-time DON. The citation level was potential harm, affecting all residents.
Sixty-seven people lived at Liberty Nursing Center during this period. Their care plans, the documents that tell nurses how to treat a pressure wound or manage a resident's diabetes or respond to a fall risk, were being maintained by the same person the facility was also relying on to run its nursing department. Whether either job was being done fully, given that one person was doing both, the inspection record does not say. What it says is that the structure was not there.
The Social Services Director, interviewed on August 21, confirmed RN #300's dual responsibilities without apparent concern about the arrangement. The ADON confirmed it. The administrator confirmed it. Everyone confirmed it. Nobody in the building appears to have treated it as a problem worth escalating before federal inspectors showed up five weeks into it.
Medical emergencies happen. Directors of nursing get sick. Facilities face gaps in leadership they didn't plan for. What distinguishes a facility's response is what it does in the weeks that follow. Liberty's response was to stack the duties onto a nurse who was already fully committed, leave her there, and wait.
RN #300 did not choose this arrangement. She told inspectors plainly that she already had a full-time position when the facility designated her to take on the DON role. She said it without apparent complaint, the way people describe things they've accepted because they had no real choice. What she was managing during those five weeks, and what may have gone unmanaged, is a question the inspection report leaves open.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Liberty Nursing Center of Colerain Inc from 2025-08-27 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
Additional Resources
Data source: Official federal inspection data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
Editorial process: AI-synthesized regulatory data, reviewed for accuracy by our editorial team.
Professional review: All content reviewed by Christopher F. Nesbitt, Sr., NH EMT & BU-trained Paralegal.
Last verified: July 2, 2026 · Our methodology
LIBERTY NURSING CENTER OF COLERAIN INC in CINCINNATI, OH was cited for violations during a health inspection on August 27, 2025.
That nurse, identified in inspection records as RN #300, was the facility's sole MDS nurse.
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.