Ballard Center: Discharge Safety Failures Documented - WA
Inspectors who visited the facility on November 14, 2025, reviewed the electronic health records of multiple residents who had left the facility against medical advice and found the same gap repeated across cases. No discharge summary. No medication reconciliation. No documentation that staff had even offered either one.
The deficiency, cited as F0628, was rated at minimal harm or potential for actual harm, and affected some residents.
Staff B, whose title is not specified in the inspection report, acknowledged the problem directly during a joint record review with inspectors. Looking at Resident 2 and Resident 3's records, Staff B said, "I don't see a nurses' note saying that they discussed it and that I don't see it documented or what they gave the resident when they left."
For Resident 4, the picture was the same. When inspectors asked Staff B whether there was any documentation showing that a discharge summary had been offered before that resident left, the answer was a single word. No.
The Director of Nursing, identified in the report as Staff A, told inspectors during a 1:15 p.m. interview that the facility's expectation was clear. Against-medical-advice discharges should be "made as safe as possible," Staff A said, and discharge summaries with medication reconciliation "would be offered and documented."
They were not.
Medication reconciliation at discharge is not a formality. When someone leaves a care facility, particularly one where medications may have been adjusted, added, or discontinued during their stay, an accurate summary of what they are taking is a basic handoff. Without it, a resident returning home, or to an emergency room, or to a family member's care, has no reliable record of what drugs are in their system, at what doses, or for what conditions.
For residents leaving against medical advice, that gap is sharper. They are already departing outside the normal discharge process. The documentation that should accompany them is often the only structured information they carry out.
Ballard Center, located at 820 Northwest 95th Street in Seattle, did not have a plan of correction included in the materials reviewed. The inspection report directs anyone seeking information on the facility's corrective response to contact the nursing home or the state survey agency directly.
The inspection was a complaint survey, meaning it was triggered by a concern brought to regulators rather than a routine scheduled review. The report does not describe the nature of the complaint that prompted the visit.
What it describes is a facility where the Director of Nursing could articulate exactly what should have happened, and where the records showed it had not.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Ballard Center from 2025-11-14 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: September 1, 2026 · Our methodology
BALLARD CENTER in SEATTLE, WA was cited for violations during a health inspection on November 14, 2025.
No documentation that staff had even offered either one.
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.