Parkview Home earns four-star rating

WAYLAND — Parkview Home celebrates a new four star Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) star rating thanks to exceptional scores in staffing and consistency in health inspections.

According to Parkview Executive Director Ron Semler, the skilled nursing facility recently received an additional star in the Nursing Home Care Compare Five-Star Quality Rating System from CMS.

This raised their quality rating from three to four stars.

“CMS launched, in 2008, the Nursing Home Care Compare Five-Star Quality Rating System in which one overall 5-star rating is calculated for each nursing home, and separate ratings are given for health inspections, staffing and quality measures,” CMS Public Affairs Specialist Kristen Clemens said.

According to Clemens, “the star ratings were created to help consumers interpret and understand reports on compliance and quality for nursing homes. Therefore, the ratings are intended to provide consumers with a high-level understanding of the general level of quality a nursing home provides.”

“So, on a regular basis, every year, every nursing home in the United States receives a survey by their state officials and sometimes federal or both,” Semler said. “They come in, they evaluate your processes, your outcomes, what you’re doing, and how you’re treating folks.”

“They look at all your information and they leave with a report which they call surveys,” he explained.

Semler attributes the additional star rating to Parkview performing well in recent surveys.

According to Medicare.gov, Parkview’s strongest area in surveys comes from staffing.

Survey results reveal Parkview maintains a total of three hours and 51 minutes of nurse staff hours per resident per day. This is above not only the Iowa average of three hours and 39 minutes but also the national average of three hours and 46 minutes.

Parkview excels particularly in the area of register nurse hours per resident per day as survey results state they average one hour and 12 minutes which is more than 30 minutes above Iowa and national averages.

“One thing you find out in long term care is that it really just depends on education and staffing, education and staffing, and education and staffing,” Semler said. “So, we've started programs for education, and we try to hang on to or promote long term employees.”

The CMS survey results state that Parkview homes turnover rate of 40.7% is more than 10% lower than the national average and more than 15% lower than the Iowa average.

The long-term care facility registered nurse turnover of 20% is less than half that of the national average of 50.4% and Iowa average of 48.4%.

“When you keep people a long time, it ultimately result in the reward of better outcomes because everyone knows what they're doing,” Semler said. “So, you have long term employees, and typically, not always, but typically that equates into a better operation, more consistent care, better care, and people that are well versed in their job.”

According to Semler, Parkview Home has employees that have worked in the home for over 30 years.

“It's not only that, it's also staff and management, clinical approaches that are kept up with,” Semler said.

According to the Medicare.gov compare website, Parkview has only received two health citations over the last 12 months compared to over eight citations for national and state averages.

These two citations over the last year came from annual inspections, not complaints, and called out a failure to ensure the dishwasher maintained the minimum required temperature in order to sanitize dishes in temperature logs and failure to document notifications for resident low blood sugars.

The statements of deficiencies and plan of correction from Department of Health and Human Services and CMS listed both instances level of harm as “Minimal harm or potential for actual harm.”

Quality measures is the only category of the survey that Parkview Home ranked below average, though their below average percentages for this area remained close to the national and state averages.

Additional information about their four-star rating is available at the medicare.gov compare website.

According to CMS, these star ratings “are a summary of many different data elements to reflect a general level of quality on a scale of one to five. In general, facilities with higher ratings provide higher quality of care.”

“The Five-Star Quality Rating System is just one of many factors to be used when choosing a nursing home,” Clemens said. “Since each individual’s preferences or needs may differ, it’s important for patients and their families to consider a range of information to inform their decision.”

“For example, we recommend individuals contact the nursing home they are considering and talk to the administrator, director of nursing, or medical director,” she said. “These individuals can speak to the type of care they provide and answer questions that are important to individual families. If people have questions or concerns about a facility, including its history, we encourage them to call their local long term care ombudsman’s office, who are individuals who specialize in long term care options.”

Comments: AnnaMarie.Ward@southeastiowaunion.com