Aurora Valley Care: Swallowing Safety Orders Missing - WA
No orders. No care plan. No diagnosis on file. Nothing.
That's what inspectors found at Aurora Valley Care during a complaint inspection on May 27, 2026. The resident, identified in inspection records only as Resident 1, had been hospitalized for worsening swallowing difficulty before returning to the facility. During that hospital stay, the care team had put specific precautions in place: keep the head of the bed elevated at all times, sit fully upright for all food and liquids, take small bites, chew thoroughly, cut food into bite-size pieces, and have staff present when the resident swallowed pills, because that was described as especially hard for this particular person.
None of that made it into the resident's orders when they came back.
The family had noticed. A close contact identified in the report as CC1 told inspectors they had raised the issue with medical providers on at least two occasions, saying staff didn't seem to know about the swallowing precautions. Nothing changed after either conversation.
The registered nurse who had cared for Resident 1 at the facility knew about the swallowing problem, but not because anyone had written it down. Staff D told inspectors they knew because Resident 1 was alert and communicative, and because the resident and family members had told them directly. When Staff D pulled up the resident's orders during the inspection interview, they couldn't find any aspiration or swallowing precautions documented anywhere. They told inspectors there should have been orders in place, and described what could happen without them: a resident with swallowing difficulties who isn't sitting upright while eating or taking pills could inhale food or fluid into their airway, which could cause an emergency.
The Director of Nursing, Staff B, went through Resident 1's chart during their own interview with inspectors that afternoon. They found the same thing: no orders for aspiration precautions, no care plan focus, no interventions, no corresponding diagnosis. Staff B confirmed the resident had readmitted with a known need for those precautions and explained what the orders should have included, starting with sitting upright for all food, fluid, and pill intake, along with any other precautions specific to that resident's needs. Staff B also named the consequence of getting it wrong: aspiration pneumonia, a lung infection that develops when food, fluid, or vomit is inhaled into the lungs.
The administrator, Staff A, offered an explanation during an interview at 2:00 PM. The staff member who normally entered diagnoses and updated care plans had been on leave during the period when Resident 1 was first admitted and then readmitted. Someone else had been filling in for them. That gap, the administrator said, was why nothing had been entered.
The inspection report does not say how long Resident 1 had been back at the facility before the complaint was filed. It does not say whether the resident aspirated during that time, or whether any incident had prompted the complaint in the first place. What it records is that a family member raised the alarm twice with medical staff and was not heard, that a nurse learned about a serious swallowing disorder from the resident and their family rather than from any clinical documentation, and that the Director of Nursing had to review the chart during a regulatory inspection to confirm that the most basic safety framework for a known, documented risk simply wasn't there.
CC1 told inspectors what the hospital had been clear about: food and liquid could come back up into the resident's throat and mouth if precautions weren't followed. That was the medical reality Resident 1 came home to. The orders that were supposed to protect them were never written.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Aurora Valley Care from 2026-05-27 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: August 12, 2026 · Our methodology
AURORA VALLEY CARE in SPOKANE, WA was cited for violations during a health inspection on May 27, 2026.
That's what inspectors found at Aurora Valley Care during a complaint inspection on May 27, 2026.
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.