Clearpol analyzed 1,699 New Jersey nursing-home surveys and 7,539 F-tag citations across 343 facilities and 19 counties (2019–2026), and categorized every citation by the way care actually broke down. New Jersey's headline isn't volume — it's jeopardy. Nearly one in ten surveys reaches Immediate Jeopardy, more than four times what the paper-citation trend would suggest.
The headline trend
Fewer citations — but jeopardy stays elevated
Citation intensity in New Jersey has fallen sharply, from 5.27 deficiencies per survey in 2023 to 3.42 in 2025 (the early-2026 figure of 2.38 reflects a partial year). That is a 55% drop in paper. Jeopardy did not follow it down: the share of surveys reaching Immediate Jeopardy held between 9% and 12% across the same window. Surveyors are writing less, but the serious findings keep coming.
That gap is the whole New Jersey story. In a state where citation counts are falling, an operator who manages to the citation trend will feel safer than the jeopardy data warrants. The volume is down; the risk is not.
Two very different visits
Where the load lives
Complaint investigations (677) average 2.0 deficiencies each. Standard and infection-control surveys (1,022 combined) average 6.1. The recert is still where the citation load concentrates — but in New Jersey the complaint visit is where much of the jeopardy originates, because the abuse and neglect findings that drive the state's IJ arrive through complaints.
Immediate Jeopardy anatomy
Abuse and oversight, not just accidents
Accidents and supervision (F689) lead New Jersey's 252 Immediate-Jeopardy citations with 62. But the defining cluster is oversight and abuse: abuse and neglect (F600) at 51, plus failure to investigate and correct alleged violations (F610) at 20 — 71 jeopardy citations that trace to how facilities handle allegations. Administration (F835) at 28 is unusually high and points at governance-level failures. CPR (F678) appears too, at 6.
New Jersey's risk is an abuse-response problem as much as a clinical one. Make sure every allegation triggers a documented investigation and correction (F610), that reporting timelines are met (F600), and that administrative oversight is visible in the record (F835). Screen for repeat-IJ buildings and manage them individually — the citation decline will not protect a facility that mishandles a single allegation.
The playbook
What gets cited across New Jersey
Infection control (F880) and kitchen sanitation (F812) lead, as they do nationally — but New Jersey over-indexes on professional standards of care (F658), its third-most-cited tag, and on respiratory and tracheostomy care (F695). Those two are worth building into any New Jersey survey-prep plan.
| F-Tag | What it covers | Citations | % of all |
|---|---|---|---|
| F880 | Infection prevention & control | 519 | 6.9% |
| F812 | Food storage / prep sanitation | 456 | 6.0% |
| F658 | Services meet professional standards | 426 | 5.7% |
| F695 | Respiratory / tracheostomy care | 294 | 3.9% |
| F755 | Pharmacy services | 284 | 3.8% |
| F689 | Accident hazards / supervision | 245 | 3.2% |
Citations are down 55%. Jeopardy is not. In New Jersey, the paper trend is the wrong thing to watch.
We pulled New Jersey's three largest county markets apart in their own reports: