[Stardust]

Anyone have a loved one in professional care facility?

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090.../902010336

An alarming 30 percent of the nursing homes in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky are woefully below average, while just 12 percent earn top ratings, according to a new national rating system.


An Enquirer analysis reveals that the proportion of low-rated nursing homes in the region is higher than the national average of 20 percent. On the positive side, the local proportion of top nursing homes exceeds the U.S. average of about 10 percent.

The system gives each nursing home a star rating. Five stars is best, one star is the worst.

The data assess nursing homes in key categories: health inspections, number of nursing staff and other measures such as quality, patient satisfaction and general well-being.

The data used to compile the ratings have been collected by the federal Centers of Medicare & Medicaid Services for decades. Until now, the information has never been so easily accessible to the public, said center spokeswoman Mary Kahn. "We just hope the nursing homes will take this information and use it to improve," Kahn said. "Mostly, the new system is targeted at consumers to help them choose a nursing home."

The data also show nursing home quality doesn't depend on location, size or ownership.

In fact, some facilities that offer fancy perks score lower than others that offer limited extras - like Heritagespring in West Chester Township, owned by for-profit Carespring Health Care. Seniors in the Barrington assisted-living apartments can visit an on-site movie theater, restaurant or spa, but the nursing home portion of the facility got a one-star rating.

Rating critics, including some operators of nursing homes that scored poorly, say the system's value is limited because it has too much room for human error. Many operators say the data shown on the Web site are not correct, but aren't sure if it's their own staff that submitted data incorrectly or if it was inserted erroneously by Medicare staff.

Nursing home ombudsman Mary Day of Pro Seniors, a nursing home watchdog group, agrees there may be reporting flaws. Even so, the system gives a fairly accurate picture of some of the problems with nursing home care, such as whether staff consistently provide required levels of care.

"The laws haven't changed much," Day said. "Do (nursing home operators) have a lot of hoops to jump through? Yes, but they are the same hoops."

Bad reviews
The Arbors at Milford, Mount Pleasant Retirement Village in Monroe, Eastgate Health Care Center in Union Township, Montgomery Care Center and West Chester Nursing & Rehabilitation Center were the lowest rated nursing homes in Greater Cincinnati.

The homes received an overall one-star rating and scored below average in all three categories.

For example, more than 30 percent of the long-term residents at The Arbors were reported to have urinary tract infections. That's much higher than the national average of 9 percent and the Ohio average of 11 percent.

The Arbors, a 139-bed facility, also chalked up 39 health deficiencies in its last inspection, including one for not notifying family members when a resident's declining health conditions required sending the resident to an emergency room. The highest number of deficiencies in the state of Ohio was 55, while the average is seven deficiencies.

"We were disappointed by our most recent survey results and took immediate measures to correct the issues identified by surveyors," said Mark Ostendorf, facility administrator for The Arbors. "The citations were low in scope in severity and all the citations were corrected and cleared by the Department of Health. There was no cited harm to any resident."

The Mount Pleasant nursing home was found to have 14 health deficiencies in an inspection during September. One was a high-level citation, earned after a resident spilled hot coffee on himself. The resident was not supposed to be left alone to eat, according to the health inspection.

"We are disappointed in those results and we will do everything we can to try to get better scores," said Dan O'Connor, chief operating officer for Ohio Presbyterian Retirement Services, the nonprofit group that operates Mount Pleasant.

In fact, the owners replaced some staff before the ratings were released, O'Connor said.

Among the surprises: a two-star rating for the Drake Center in Hartwell, a facility known as one of the region's most advanced long-term rehabilitation centers, and a one-star score for the Otterbein Retirement Community in Lebanon, the largest nursing home in Southwest Ohio with 296 beds...............