Runnells Center: Bruise Unreported to State Health Dept - NJ
Inspectors arrived on Halloween and found the gap that night.
During an interview at 11:59 p.m. on October 31, the facility's Assistant Director of Nursing confirmed to surveyors that no report had been filed with the New Jersey Department of Health. The injuries, a bruise on the right eye and a bruise on the right arm, both on the same side of the body, had been investigated internally as a bruise of unknown origin. The ADON's explanation: the aspirin the resident was taking caused it.
Unilateral bruising, appearing on one side of the body, is the kind of finding that prompts mandatory reporting precisely because it doesn't explain itself easily. A blood thinner can cause bruising. It does not explain why both injuries appeared on the same side.
The resident also had dementia.
None of that made it into the care plan. Inspectors found that the aspirin, the right arm bruise, and the dementia diagnosis, along with interventions specific to dementia, had not been added to the resident's individualized care plan. The ADON, reviewing the care plan alongside a surveyor, confirmed it. The aspirin should have been care planned. It wasn't.
Shortly after noon that same day, a surveyor sat down with a group that included the Assistant Administrator, the ADON, a Regional Director of Nursing, and the Administrator of Behavioral Health. The surveyor laid out both problems: the failure to report an injury of unknown source to state authorities, and a care plan that hadn't been updated to reflect the resident's actual condition and medications.
No further information was provided.
The care planning lapse matters beyond paperwork. A care plan is the document that tells every nurse, aide, and therapist who touches a resident what that person needs and why. A resident on aspirin who is also living with dementia presents specific risks. Dementia can affect how a person communicates pain, how they move, how they interact with staff. Aspirin affects how they bleed. When those facts aren't in the care plan, the people providing daily care are working without the full picture.
The reporting failure is a separate problem with its own weight. New Jersey requires nursing homes to notify the Department of Health when a resident sustains an injury of unknown origin. The requirement exists because facilities are not always the most reliable investigators of their own incidents. External oversight depends on external notification. When a facility decides internally that it has already figured out the cause, and on that basis skips the report, the oversight system breaks down at the moment it is most needed.
The ADON's position, that aspirin explained the bruising, may or may not be correct. Aspirin thins the blood and can cause bruising from minor trauma that might otherwise leave no mark. But the determination that aspirin was the cause was made by the facility, about its own resident, without notifying the agency responsible for reviewing exactly these situations. The state never got the chance to agree or disagree.
Runnells Center's own interdisciplinary care planning policy, dated August 1, 2025, states that individualized interventions will be planned by each discipline to correct problems identified during care conferences. The resident's bruising, anticoagulant use, and dementia were identified problems. The policy described what should have happened. What happened was different.
The deficiency was cited at a level of minimal harm or potential for actual harm, affecting few residents. That classification reflects the regulatory floor, not necessarily the full picture of what the resident experienced, or what might have been caught if the state had received the report it was owed.
The resident had a bruise on their eye and a bruise on their arm. The facility had an explanation. The state never heard it.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Runnells Center For Rehabilitation & Healthcare from 2025-10-31 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: June 22, 2026 · Our methodology
RUNNELLS CENTER FOR REHABILITATION & HEALTHCARE in BERKELEY HEIGHTS, NJ was cited for violations during a health inspection on October 31, 2025.
Inspectors arrived on Halloween and found the gap that night.
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.