Peoria Post Acute: Unlocked Medication Cart Found - AZ
Federal inspectors observed the unlocked cart at 12:07 p.m. on September 11, 2025. Two minutes later, they interviewed the registered nurse responsible for it. She confirmed the cart was unlocked. She also confirmed what followed from that fact: that people could get into the cart and get into the medications.
The Director of Nursing had said the same thing earlier that morning. Her expectation, she told inspectors, was that medication carts should be locked and secured any time a staff member was not present. The risks, she said, were that residents could access the medications inside.
Both women understood the problem. The cart was unlocked anyway.
The facility's own pharmacy services policy, last reviewed in November 2024, stated plainly that medications should not be left unsecured or unattended, and that carts will be kept locked when no staff member is present. The policy existed. The expectation existed. On September 11, neither one was enough.
Inspectors classified the violation as minimal harm or potential for actual harm, affecting few residents. That framing reflects the absence of a documented injury, not the absence of risk. An unlocked medication cart in a nursing home hallway is accessible to residents, visitors, and staff alike. Some residents in post-acute and rehabilitation settings are there precisely because their judgment or physical condition makes unsupervised access to medications dangerous.
No one recorded who walked past that cart between the moment it was left and the moment inspectors arrived.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Peoria Post Acute and Rehabilitation from 2025-09-11 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
Download the official CMS inspection PDF from Medicare.gov
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 22, 2026 · Our methodology
Peoria Post Acute and Rehabilitation in PEORIA, AZ was cited for violations during a health inspection on September 11, 2025.
Federal inspectors observed the unlocked cart at 12:07 p.m.
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.