NHC Healthcare Kingsport: Care Plan Failures Cited - TN
The resident, identified in inspection records only as Resident 64, had a physician's order dating back to April 7 directing staff to encourage her to wear protective sleeves on both arms to keep her from picking at the skin. A quarterly cognitive assessment had placed her at an 11 on the Brief Interview for Mental Status scale, a score that indicates moderate cognitive impairment. She could not reliably direct her own care.
By May 25, a weekly skin observation document recorded what had happened: open abrasions on both arms, self-inflicted, and shearing wounds on both sides of the buttocks. Three days later, on the morning of the inspection itself, a physician wrote a new order directing staff to apply barrier cream to the buttocks twice daily.
That same afternoon, at 3:45 p.m., an inspector sat down with the facility's RN MDS Coordinator and went through Resident 64's comprehensive care plan together. The coordinator confirmed she was personally responsible for developing and revising care plans at the facility. She also confirmed that neither the arm abrasions nor the buttocks wounds had been added to the care plan.
The wounds existed. The physician orders existed. The skin observation records existed. The care plan said none of it.
A care plan is how a facility communicates a resident's needs across shifts and across staff. A nurse arriving for a night shift, an aide covering a weekend, a therapist seeing a resident for the first time — the care plan is what tells them what is happening with that person and what they are supposed to do about it. When it is incomplete, the information doesn't travel. Staff caring for Resident 64 on any given shift had no formal documentation telling them she had open wounds on her arms or broken skin on her buttocks, no documented instruction to watch those areas, no recorded plan for managing the self-injurious behavior beyond whatever they happened to already know.
The April 7 order about protective sleeves had been sitting in her chart for seven weeks before inspectors arrived. The skin observation flagging the open abrasions and shearing had been completed three days before the inspection. Neither had prompted a care plan update.
CMS classified the violation at a level of minimal harm or potential for actual harm, and noted that few residents were affected. The inspection was completed May 28, 2026.
What the classification does not capture is the specific situation of a woman with moderate dementia who cannot stop herself from picking at her own skin, whose wounds were documented, whose physician had twice issued orders in response to those wounds, and whose care plan reflected none of it. The coordinator who confirmed the gap was the same person whose job it was to close it.
The facility is located at 2300 Pavilion Drive in Kingsport and is part of the NHC Healthcare chain. For information on the facility's plan to correct the deficiency, CMS directs the public to contact the nursing home or the state survey agency directly.
Resident 64 remained at the facility as of the inspection date, with open abrasions on both arms and wounds on both sides of her buttocks, and a care plan that still did not mention either.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Nhc Healthcare, Kingsport from 2026-05-28 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 8, 2026 · Our methodology
NHC HEALTHCARE, KINGSPORT in KINGSPORT, TN was cited for violations during a health inspection on May 28, 2026.
A quarterly cognitive assessment had placed her at an 11 on the Brief Interview for Mental Status scale, a score that indicates moderate cognitive impairment.
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.