Highland Hills Post Acute: Mobility Aid Failures - PA
The resident, identified in inspection records only as Resident R4, has hemiplegia, meaning one side of the body is paralyzed, along with aphasia, a condition that affects the ability to speak or understand language. When inspectors arrived at the facility on September 24, 2025, they found R4 lying in bed at 9:05 in the morning. The hand splint was sitting in the bedside stand, unused. Neither hand had a splint on it.
A right resting hand splint holds the hand in what therapists call a functional resting position. For a stroke survivor with hemiplegia, it is not a comfort measure. It is a tool to prevent the hand from curling into a contracted position that becomes permanent. Without it, the hand can tighten over time in ways that no amount of later therapy can fully reverse.
The Director of Rehabilitation told inspectors that afternoon that R4 had been discharged from active therapy on September 4, three weeks before the inspection, and transitioned to what the facility calls a Rehab Restorative Transition Program. That program's own documentation spelled out the instruction clearly: right resting hand splint on in the evening, off in the morning.
Nobody acted on it.
Inspectors reviewed R4's current physician orders. No order for a hand splint appeared. They reviewed the current care plan. No plan for a hand splint appeared there either. The rehabilitation team had documented the recommendation. The nursing staff responsible for R4's daily care had no record of it, no order to follow, and no care plan directing anyone to put the splint on at night.
The Director of Nursing confirmed the failure directly to inspectors at 2:16 that afternoon. The facility, she said, is still working on its processes for when a resident moves from the rehabilitation unit to long-term care. She acknowledged the facility had failed to process the Rehab Restorative Transition Program's recommendations and had failed to ensure R4 received appropriate services and equipment to maintain or improve mobility.
That gap between what the rehabilitation team documents and what the nursing floor actually does is precisely where residents fall through. A therapist finishes their work, writes up a transition plan, and considers the handoff complete. On the other side of that handoff, nobody has a physician order, nobody has a care plan entry, and the splint sits in the drawer.
R4 also has aphasia. The ability to flag the problem, to tell a nurse that something was supposed to happen and isn't, was compromised by the stroke itself. The resident could not easily advocate for the missing care.
The facility's own policy on assistive devices and equipment, dated November 1, 2024, states that the facility maintains and supervises the use of assistive devices and equipment for residents. The splint in the bedside stand, untouched, was the supervision the policy produced.
Inspectors cited the deficiency at a level of minimal harm or potential for actual harm, a designation that reflects the lower end of the federal harm scale. The citation covered one of four residents whose records were reviewed. The inspection was a complaint survey, meaning someone had raised a concern before inspectors arrived.
Highland Hills Post Acute is located at 1105 Perry Highway in Pittsburgh. The inspection was completed September 25, 2025.
R4's hand, in the weeks since rehabilitation ended, has been resting however it rests without support, while the splint designed to hold it in place sat a few feet away in a drawer.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Highland Hills Post Acute from 2025-09-25 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
HIGHLAND HILLS POST ACUTE in PITTSBURGH, PA was cited for violations during a health inspection on September 25, 2025.
When inspectors arrived at the facility on September 24, 2025, they found R4 lying in bed at 9:05 in the morning.
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.