Westlake Care Community: Infection Control Failures - CO
The August 27 complaint inspection turned up six deficiencies in total. One of them was a citation under the infection control tag, the federal standard that requires nursing homes to actually implement the programs they put on paper. Inspectors classified the problem at Scope and Severity Level E, meaning it wasn't a one-time failure. It was happening across enough residents or situations that inspectors called it a pattern.
Nobody was documented as harmed. That distinction matters less than it sounds.
Level E citations sit at the edge of a threshold that federal regulators use to separate isolated problems from systemic ones. A facility can cross into that territory without a single resident ending up in the hospital. What it means, in practical terms, is that inspectors saw the same infection control breakdown more than once during their visit — enough times to conclude this wasn't a staff member having a bad day.
Infection control failures in nursing homes carry particular weight because of who lives there. Residents of long-term care facilities are, by definition, among the most medically vulnerable people in any community. Many have compromised immune systems, open wounds, urinary catheters, or feeding tubes — each one a potential entry point for an infection that a healthier person might fight off without a second thought. A pattern of failures in how a facility prevents the spread of pathogens is not a paperwork problem. It is a problem that moves through a building.
The inspection report does not detail what specific practices were found deficient. It does not name the residents involved, describe which units were affected, or explain what inspectors observed that led them to conclude the failures were a pattern rather than an exception. What it records is the citation, the scope, the severity, and the facility's response.
That response came six weeks later. Westlake Care Community reported a correction date of October 10, 2025 — roughly 44 days after inspectors walked out the door with a finding that the facility's infection prevention and control program was not being properly implemented.
Six weeks is not an unusually long correction window for this type of citation. Facilities are generally given time to retrain staff, update procedures, and document that the problem has been addressed. Whether the correction holds is a different question, one that only a follow-up inspection can answer.
The August visit was a complaint inspection, which means someone — a resident, a family member, a staff member, or a member of the public — contacted regulators with a concern serious enough to trigger a visit. Complaint inspections are targeted. Inspectors arrive because something specific prompted them to. The six deficiencies they found when they got there suggest the facility had problems that extended beyond whatever the original complaint described.
Westlake Care Community is not a facility with a long public record of catastrophic failures. But the infection control citation fits a pattern that shows up repeatedly in nursing home oversight data nationwide: facilities that have programs on paper, train staff at hire, and then allow those practices to drift. Handwashing skipped. Gloves not changed between tasks. Isolation protocols followed loosely. None of it dramatic. All of it cumulative.
The residents living at Westlake Care Community during those six weeks between the inspection and the reported correction date had no way of knowing what inspectors had found, or whether the practices that prompted the citation were still happening around them.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Edgewater Health and Rehabilitation from 2025-08-27 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.
Professional review: All content reviewed by Christopher F. Nesbitt, Sr., NH EMT & BU-trained Paralegal.
Last verified: October 3, 2026 · Our methodology
Edgewater Health and Rehabilitation in LAKEWOOD, CO was cited for violations during a health inspection on August 27, 2025.
The August 27 complaint inspection turned up six deficiencies in total.
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.