Rochester Residence: COVID Outbreak Mishandled - PA
The Director of Nursing at Rochester Residence and Care Center confirmed to inspectors that after RN Employee E33 tested positive on September 13, the facility conducted no contact tracing and tested no residents or staff who had been exposed during E33's last shift. The third floor, where E33 had worked the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift, went untested until the night of September 15, stretching into the early morning of September 16.
By then, at least one resident already had COVID.
When a state surveyor walked into Resident R72's room at 11 a.m. on September 16, two staff members were present, both wearing masks. One of them, Nurse Aide Employee E4, said R72 had tested positive. The other staff member in the room did not know. Neither was wearing eye protection. The privacy curtain between R72 and a roommate was not pulled, and the roommate had no source control in place.
The surveyor had not known R72 was COVID-positive before entering the room. There was no signage on the door.
The Director of Nursing confirmed all of it: no timely outbreak response, no floor mapping for three of the five months reviewed — July, August, and September 2025 — and a surveillance system that failed to catch any of it before a state inspector walked into an unsecured room and learned the news from a nurse aide.
Resident R72's roommate was still sitting there, curtain open, unmasked, a few feet away.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Rochester Residence and Care Center from 2025-09-19 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 23, 2026 · Our methodology
ROCHESTER RESIDENCE AND CARE CENTER in ROCHESTER, PA was cited for violations during a health inspection on September 19, 2025.
The third floor, where E33 had worked the 11 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.