Dexter Health Care: Wound Vac Care Missed for Days - ME
That is what inspectors documented at Dexter Health Care following a complaint inspection completed May 27, 2026. The facility failed to follow a physician's order requiring wound vac dressing changes every 48 hours for a resident who had returned from a hospital stay. Two scheduled changes, on May 1 and May 3, were never done.
A wound vac, short for wound vacuum-assisted closure, draws fluid from a wound and promotes healing through negative pressure. The device requires regular dressing changes at physician-specified intervals. When those changes are skipped, the wound's healing environment is disrupted.
The resident, identified in inspection records only as Resident 1, had been discharged from a hospital on April 30, 2026. The hospital's discharge summary included a physician's order for wound vac dressing changes every 48 hours. That order was in the clinical record. The facility received the resident. And then, for the next five days, nothing happened.
The last dressing change before the resident's return had been completed on April 29, the day before discharge. That was the final entry for days.
A licensed master social worker at the hospital told inspectors that on April 22, she had spoken with the facility about the resident returning with a wound vac. She knew the plan. She had discussed it. When the facility called her on May 4 asking for wound vac supplies, she learned the dressing changes had not been done as of that date.
The facility had no supplies. It had accepted a resident with an active wound vac order and did not have what was needed to carry out that order.
The Treatment Administration Record confirmed what the social worker described. The first dressing change documented after the resident's return was on May 5. The records showed no entries for May 1 or May 3, the dates when changes would have been scheduled under the every-48-hours order. Those dates were not coded as completed. They were simply absent.
The administrator, in an interview with the surveyor at 12:35 p.m. on May 27, confirmed it directly. The physician's order had not been followed. The dressing changes on May 1 and May 3 did not occur.
That confirmation closed a loop that had already been documented from two directions: the hospital social worker who received the call asking for supplies, and the facility's own treatment records showing no entries on the scheduled dates.
Inspectors rated the violation at a level of minimal harm or potential for actual harm, and noted it affected few residents. One resident was reviewed for wound vac care. That one resident was the one whose care fell through.
The gap between April 30 and May 5 was not a documentation error or a missed checkbox. It was five days during which a resident with an open wound requiring active mechanical treatment received none. The facility had no supplies and, based on what the social worker described, did not reach out for help until May 4, four days after the resident arrived.
The social worker had known since April 22 that this resident was coming back with a wound vac. The discharge summary spelled out the order. Whatever coordination was needed to have supplies on hand before April 30 did not happen.
The resident had come home from the hospital to a facility that was not ready.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Dexter Health 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
Dexter Health Care in Dexter, ME was cited for violations during a health inspection on May 27, 2026.
That is what inspectors documented at Dexter Health Care following a complaint inspection completed 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.