Civita Care Center: Lab Result Delays Put Residents at Risk - CT
Inspectors visited Civita Care Center at Newington on August 28, 2025, and documented what they found in the medical records and in interviews with staff. The picture that emerged was of a breakdown at two separate points in the same chain of care, each one a place where a nurse was supposed to act and didn't.
The first failure happened on August 8. An advanced practice registered nurse, identified in the inspection report as APRN #2, had ordered STAT blood work. STAT means now. It means the result is needed urgently enough that it cannot wait for a routine collection run. The blood work was not obtained that day. No one told APRN #2.
The inspection report does not say why the blood work wasn't collected. It does not name the staff member who should have made the call. What it says is that when inspectors reviewed the records and interviewed facility staff, they could not identify who had notified APRN #2 that the STAT order would go unfulfilled, and they could not identify why APRN #2 was never told at all.
The second failure came two days later. On August 10, critical lab results came back to the facility. A registered nurse, identified as RN #1, reviewed them. The facility's own clinical protocol is explicit on what happens next: when results require immediate notification, the preferred method is direct voice communication with the physician, especially when a resident's clinical status is unstable or current treatment needs review. The protocol lists the options — phone, fax, voicemail, email, pager, telephone message — and instructs staff to document how, when, and to whom they reported the result and what response they received.
RN #1 did not call the hospital.
The Director of Nursing Services confirmed this during an interview with inspectors on August 28. The DNS said RN #1 should have made that call. The inspection report does not indicate that RN #1 offered an explanation for why she didn't, or that any documentation existed showing she had tried to reach someone and failed.
The deficiency was cited under F0684, which covers the standard that residents receive care and treatment that meets professional standards of quality. Inspectors assessed the level of harm as minimal harm or potential for actual harm, and noted that few residents were affected.
That designation sits in tension with what the records show. Critical lab values are defined as results so far outside the normal range that they signal a condition requiring immediate medical attention. The facility's own policy acknowledges this, stating that clinically significant results must be reviewed and acted upon appropriately and in a timely manner, and that direct voice contact is preferred precisely when a resident's condition may be unstable. A nurse who receives those results and does not call is not making a judgment that the situation is stable. She is simply not acting.
The facility's lab and diagnostic testing policy lays out a systematic process: the physician orders the test, staff arranges for collection, results come back to a nurse, the nurse assesses urgency, and the physician is notified. The process failed at the collection stage on August 8, when the STAT draw didn't happen and APRN #2 was left waiting for results that were never going to come. It failed again on August 10, when results that did come back were reviewed and then set aside.
The inspection report does not say what the critical values showed. It does not name the resident or describe what happened to them in the days between August 8 and August 28. It does not say whether the delayed notification changed the course of treatment, or whether the STAT blood work was ever collected.
What it says is that a provider ordered urgent testing and was not told it hadn't been done, and that when results finally arrived and a nurse read them, no one picked up the phone.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Civita Care Center At Newington from 2025-08-28 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
CIVITA CARE CENTER AT NEWINGTON in NEWINGTON, CT was cited for violations during a health inspection on August 28, 2025.
Inspectors visited Civita Care Center at Newington on August 28, 2025, and documented what they found in the medical records and in interviews with staff.
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.