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 The Vietnam Memorial Traveling Wall passes through downtown Wapakoneta Wednesday, September 1. Staff photo/William Laney By CARLA MEYER
Staff Writer
For 45 minutes, the roar of motorcycles could be heard passing under an American flag hanging from two ladder trucks. For 45 minutes, area residents gathered in the shadow of the Auglaize County Courthouse and Wapakoneta Fire Station waved and clapped as motorcyclists rode by.
The smiles and waves turned into clapping and cheers as the Vietnam Memorial Traveling Wall passed down Willipie Street on its way to Custenborder Field in Sidney where it was greeted by a field of American flags.
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Friday, 02 January 2009 |
By ANDREA POTEET
Staff Writer
Area nursing home administrators have mixed reactions about a new ranking system unveiled recently by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMMS).
The five-star ranking system uses three criteria, health inspections, nursing home staffing and quality measures. Quality measures include immunization rates and the prevalence of pressure ulcers in residents, to rank the overall quality of the nations’ nursing homes.
The system received criticism since its first rankings were introduced in December. Many nursing home operators feel the ranking system is flawed.
“I was really excited about this system,” Auglaize Acres Nursing Home Administrator Nick Scheck said Tuesday in a telephone interview, “but I was really disappointed in our (two out of five) ranking.
“What doesn’t make any sense to me is that we did so well on family satisfaction and resident satisfaction surveys, to look at this one, we did awful,” he said.
Scheck said one of the major problems with the ranking system is unlike a similar nursing home ranking system spearheaded by the Ohio Department of Aging, the CMMS survey does not interview residents of the families they serve to gauge their satisfaction with the facilities. The data is gathered from self-reports by the nursing homes and reports by inspectors during the most recent health inspections.
“What they need to do is come in these facilities,” Scheck said. “The Auglaize Acres had a very good yearly annual inspection from the Ohio Department of Health, and families are very satisfied here.”
Scheck said anyone considering any nursing facility including Auglaize Acres should visit the facility without a tour guide and at several different times to see the interactions between staff and residents for themselves.
Scheck said he does not understand why the nursing home received a three out of five ranking for staffing. The rating was based on the number of certified nursing staff per resident per day, and adjusted to reflect different levels of resident needs.
The staffing requirements in Ohio are two hours per resident per day.
“Our staffing at Auglaize Acres not only exceeds state minimums, but it is so much better than the majority,” Scheck said. “We have extra staff when so many run at the minimum.”
Wapakoneta Manor, which received a five out of five overall rating, sees their ranking as a “validation of a good culture and clinical outcome,” Administrator Lorraine Fischio said.
She said the survey may not address all factors involved with nursing homes, but those statistics are available from the American Health Care Association, the Ohio Department of Aging, and other sources.
She recommends consumers look at survey results from a variety of sources before deciding on a nursing home.
“I think that this is a way for CMMS to simplify and give the public a glance review in a format we’re already used to because of the five star rankings of hotels and restaurants,” Fischio said. “I don’t think its an all-inclusive picture, but I think it’s a good starting point.”
Otterbein Cridersville and St. Marys retirement communities received five and four star ratings, respectively, but a spokesperson said the ranking system has some improvements to make.
“We’re happy about the rankings, but we do take some exception with the five star rating,” Otterbein Homes Marketing and Public Relations Vice President Rose Cisak said. “We feel that sometimes the data can be flawed and not reflective of care and quality.”
Cisak said that facilities with high numbers of patients with degenerative illnesses, such as Alzheimer’s, can skew quality measure rankings.
“If you have a significantly higher population of sick residents, that can pull your ratings down,” Cisak said. “Those people do get sicker over time.”
She said the two Otterbein communities in Auglaize County have a relatively small number of nursing patients 38 for the Cridersville facility and 45 for the St. Marys facility.
Cisak said she anticipates the positive ratings will result in more interest to the Otterbein facilities, regardless of the system’s validity.
“The system is a snapshot in time,” Cisak said. “It doesn’t always provide accurate information for some facilities. During that snapshot in time, that’s how we rated, but we do feel the system could be flawed.”
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Last Updated ( Monday, 05 January 2009 )
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