Three Nursing Homes in Polk Get Top Marks

3 Nursing Homes in Polk Get Top Marks
New federal quality-ranking system lauds Lakeland, Bartow, Lake Wales facilities.
By Robin Williams Adams
The Ledger

Published: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 at 10:10 p.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 at 11:09 p.m.
LAKELAND | Three of 23 Polk County nursing homes received the best ranking possible - five stars for "much above average" - in a new quality-ranking system the federal government unveiled recently.
They are Florida Presbyterian Homes in Lakeland, The Rohr Home in Bartow and Dove Health Care at Lake Wales.

Another eight received four stars, meaning they scored above average. Five were ranked average. Four were below average.

Three others - Auburndale Oaks Healthcare Center, Bartow Center and The Groves Center - received just one star, the lowest grade. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services defines that as "much below average."

CMS looks at three areas to determine a nursing home's star quality:

Its performance on a three-year review of health inspections.

Staffing levels.

How it did on 10 quality measures each center collects on its residents. The measures include residents' health, mental status, physical functioning and overall wellbeing.

A facility's score in each of the three areas, along with the cumulative rating for each nursing home, is on the CMS Web site. Ratings will be updated at least quarterly.

"This should help consumers in narrowing their choices, but nothing should substitute for visiting a nursing home," acting CMS Administrator Kerry Weems said in a media telephone briefing.

He said CMS did its best to adjust for variations in the types of health inspections done by different states - the source of the health inspection data - to make the grading comparable from state to state.

"We want to make sure we're measuring differences in quality, not difference in measurements," he said.

Some nursing home officials in Florida, however, said problems exist in using the star system to measure quality.

"If you judge a facility just by that report, it isn't fair," said Ken Perry, who became administrator of the Bartow Center this summer.

"Maybe there were some things, but, I can tell you, a lot has changed. Whatever the rating is, it is not where this facility is (now) and where we're headed."

Whether a nursing home is ranked high or low, Perry said, people need to visit it before putting someone there. He said he is hearing positive comments from visitors during the past few months.

Spokesmen for Auburndale Oaks Healthcare Center and The Groves Center in Lake Wales were unavailable.

John Hehn, executive director of Florida Presbyterian, one of the highest-ranked, said it's difficult to convert large amounts of data into a user-friendly ratings system. "There are some questions and concerns … within our industry, but it's a great first effort," he said.

Additional factors need to be included in determining the ratings, said Kristen Knapp, communications director for the Florida Health Care Association, which represents providers of long-term care.

"It certainly doesn't take residents' satisfaction into consideration at all, which is a quality-of-life issue we feel should be factored in," Knapp said.

CMS also doesn't take into account a facility's specialties, such as dementia care or rehabilitation, or financial difficulties such as having a particularly large number of Medicaid patients, Knapp and others said.

The federal agency changed its method of grading nursing home staffing after having told health care providers it would be done a different way, Knapp said. And the quality indicators used aren't the same for all Florida nursing homes, she said, because some were in a pilot study of a revised way to measure quality.

All nursing homes surveyed are Medicare and Medicaid certified.

To look for a nursing home's ranking, go to www.medicare gov and click on New Nursing Home Five-Star Quality Rating.

[ Robin Williams Adams can be reached at robin.adams@theledger.com or 863-802-7558. Read her blog at robinsrx.theledger.com. ]