Hillside Heights: Drug Storage Safety Failures - OR
The facility's own protocol was clear. Any resident who went three days without a bowel movement was supposed to be assessed by a nurse, with a physical examination of the gastrointestinal system and a check for signs of constipation, impaction, or obstruction. If the assessment warranted it, staff were to follow physician orders, which could include stool softeners, laxatives, bowel stimulants, or an enema. If none of that worked, the physician was to be notified.
None of that happened for either resident.
The first, identified in inspection records as Resident 5, had been admitted in December 2025 with diabetes. Bowel records covering the final days of December through late January showed the resident had no bowel movement on January 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 of 2026, five consecutive days. A review of progress notes and medication administration records for that same stretch showed no bowel assessments were completed and no additional bowel medications were offered.
The Director of Nursing acknowledged it directly. On January 29 at 2:13 in the afternoon, she confirmed that no bowel assessment had been completed for Resident 5 and that the resident had not received the bowel care interventions that had been ordered.
The second resident, Resident 8, had been admitted the same month with heart failure. That resident went without a bowel movement on January 19, 20, 21, and 22. Again, the progress notes and medication administration records for those four days showed no assessments and no additional medications. The Director of Nursing confirmed the same failure the following morning, on January 30 at 10:57 a.m.
Four days. Five days. The protocol existed. The physician orders existed. The records existed. What didn't exist was anyone following through.
Constipation in nursing home residents is not a minor inconvenience. For residents with conditions like diabetes and heart failure, impaction can escalate quickly, causing abdominal pain, nausea, and in serious cases, bowel obstruction. The facility's own protocol acknowledged as much by building in a physician notification requirement if interventions failed. But that safeguard only matters if the first steps are taken.
They weren't.
The inspection was conducted January 30, 2026, at Hillside Heights Rehabilitation Center at 1201 McLean Boulevard in Eugene. Inspectors classified the violation as causing minimal harm or potential for actual harm, and noted it affected a small number of residents. The deficiency fell under the category of medication administration.
What the records don't show is how either resident felt during those days. Whether Resident 5, managing diabetes in a new facility just weeks after admission, said anything to staff. Whether Resident 8, admitted with heart failure and already navigating a compromised body, experienced discomfort that went unaddressed because no one checked the bowel log.
The Director of Nursing did not dispute the findings. There was no claim that assessments had been done and simply not documented, no argument that the protocol had been followed in some informal way the records failed to capture. The acknowledgment on both days was straightforward: it didn't happen.
Hillside Heights had a written protocol. It had physician orders in place. It had medication administration records that would have shown, to anyone who looked, that two recently admitted residents had gone days without a bowel movement. The system for catching exactly this kind of lapse was already built. It just wasn't used.
For Resident 5 and Resident 8, both new to the facility in December, both managing serious chronic conditions, the first weeks of their stay included days when a basic, ordered part of their care was skipped, and no one noticed until an inspector asked.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Hillside Heights Rehabilitation Center from 2026-01-30 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: August 4, 2026 · Our methodology
HILLSIDE HEIGHTS REHABILITATION CENTER in EUGENE, OR was cited for violations during a health inspection on January 30, 2026.
The facility's own protocol was clear.
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.