Satisfaction Surveys Show Ohioans Pleased with Skilled Nursing Facilities

  • Author: Health Informer
  • Filed under: Health News
  • Date: Dec 23,2008

Results More Useful than Federal Ratings, Says OHCA

Ohio’s skilled nursing facilities scored, on average, 88.23 on a 100-point scale in family satisfaction, according to data released today by the Ohio Department of Aging (ODA). The Ohio Health Care Association (OHCA), the state’s largest long-term care organization, applauded the agency for again seeking out the opinions of real consumers, pointing out that the survey results are a much more useful tool to evaluate the care provided by the state’s skilled nursing facilities than the federal government’s hastily released “Five-Star” rating system.

“We believe these surveys of families of actual patients present a clear picture of the quality services actually delivered in Ohio’s skilled nursing facilities,” said Peter Van Runkle, OHCA’s Executive Director. “By listening to the opinions of the people in the best position to judge the services our facilities provide, these independent surveys are a better measure of quality than a misleading ‘star’ system based on an arbitrary and convoluted formula.”

Ohio’s Family Satisfaction Survey asks family members about their satisfaction with over 60 aspects of a facility’s services. The 2008 survey shows improved satisfaction compared to 2006 (88.23 versus 86.6). The 2008 survey was conducted between July and December by the Scripps Gerontology Center of Miami University, under contract with ODA. In 2007, ODA contracted for interviews of skilled nursing facility patients, which also showed high levels of satisfaction. The satisfaction questionnaires were developed by impartial researchers and tested to ensure their validity. The ratings are based on two key questions selected by the researchers: “Overall, do you like this facility?” and “Would you recommend this facility to a family member or friend?”

The satisfaction survey results show the inaccuracy of the Five-Star rating system rushed into public view last week by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). “CMS arbitrarily put their thumb on the scale by dictating that twice as many skilled nursing facilities have to be one-star as five-star,” said Van Runkle. “Then they distorted the formula even further by saying a facility can be rated two stars higher than another facility with the exact same inspection and clinical results just because it has higher staffing, and without considering what patients and families think of the care provided.” This caused such erroneous results as half or more of the skilled nursing facilities in certain Ohio counties being at the bottom of CMS’s five-star scale.” CMS did not wait to include customer satisfaction data, even though the agency has plans to collect it, and did not verify staffing data, despite its importance in the Five-Star formula.

“To sum it up, Five-Star tries to come up with a single star measure and then claims this one measure accurately describes each facility’s quality,” Van Runkle said. “This might sound like it would be helpful to consumers, but the results are extremely misleading.” He noted that Five-Star gives the state’s skilled nursing facilities more “one-star” ratings than other states, but the satisfaction survey shows families at these supposedly “poor” facilities are generally happy with the care delivered: a third of the one-star facilities even beat the 88.23 statewide satisfaction average.

“We recommend Ohio’s long-term care consumers use the Department of Aging’s online ‘Consumer Guide,’ which gives detailed data on survey results, quality measures, and most importantly, the opinions of actual consumers, and does it in a usable fashion,” Van Runkle continued. “Visits to the facility are indispensible, and talking to residents, their families, and staff is more important than rating systems. Even CMS says the Five-Star system should not be used to rule out facilities when conducting a search.”

Ohio’s Consumer Guide and additional information is available online at www.ltcohio.org, or by contacting the Ohio Department of Aging at 800-282-1206.

The Ohio Health Care Association is a non-profit association of more than 730 skilled nursing facilities, assisted living residences, and facilities for people with developmental disabilities, caring for nearly 59,000 Ohioans. It is the largest long-term care association in the state, and the only chartered Ohio affiliate of the American Health Care Association. For additional information please go to www.ohca.org.

Source: Ohio Health Care Association


The following is being issued by T. L. Kittle, CEO and founder of the Blue Diamond Foundation:

What would help most Americans achieve optimum health care?

Since many people living in the United States don’t have access to quality health care, this is a wish-list to President-Elect Obama of actions that can be taken in order to ensure quality health care for everyone in the New Year.

As many of those who are ill understand, having health insurance does not necessarily mean having access to good health care–the current business practices that the insurance companies are allowed to utilize often make the insurance company itself an obstacle to quality medical care.

So this is my Holiday Wish-List…not in any order of importance, but the list nevertheless.

  • Physicians should not need to get approvals from insurance companies for their orders. If lawyers don’t need to ask permission, why do physicians? Not only does the approval process create unnecessary waste, it harms lives in the delays.
  • Eliminate pre-existing conditions.
  • Reduce co-pays and deductibles to rates that are more affordable. Most people don’t realize how little their insurance actually covers until they become ill.
  • Create a ‘patient directs’ physician protection law. Because there are so many diseases that have false negatives on test results, not to mention diseases there aren’t even names for, the current system makes it very difficult for physicians to help these patients–they’re either afraid insurance won’t cover the services or they’re afraid of getting sued later in the medical malpractice system. There needs to be a waiver that patients can sign that says, “This is my body, and while standards of care indicate xyz, I would like this medical action and in discussion with my physician I accept responsibility for negative consequences.” While physicians know more about medicine, patients know more about their bodies. Many people are suffering unnecessarily simply because their physician’s hands are tied.
  • Pay physicians for the work they do–on par with attorneys. If physicians get a difficult case, very few want to take it because they aren’t being compensated for time on the job. Make it mandatory for insurance companies to provide compensation for x number of hours of research per patient and y number of phone calls per patient per calendar year. (10 hours of research, 25 phone calls?) Many people who are suffering horribly with an unusual case have a difficult time finding a physician simply because physicians can’t afford to take on a lot of difficult cases.
  • Work with major corporations to develop a new paradigm for health care. Many corporations are struggling to make profits, yet still want to provide quality health care for their employees. Develop a new national system, giving corporations the option to pay into a well thought-out health care plan that provides quality care at affordable rates, outside of the current private system model.
  • Stop hospitals from charging more to those without insurance than the insurance company rates. Many people are losing their homes for amounts that the insurance companies would pay $5,000.

This current connection between “health insurance” somehow means “good health care” is simply misleading, and very far from the truth in some cases. Developing a new health insurance system, in collaboration with private corporations and public interest groups, with government accountability, will help make affordable health care available to everyone.

As evident by the millions without health insurance and those with health insurance yet being denied much needed medical care, there needs to be created an entirely new paradigm in order to make available quality health care. Clearly, the evidence that the current system is malfunctioning is overwhelming.

Health for one is healthy for all–it’s time for this nation to take a stand by implementing a new approach.

If the major corporations would come together with the government and public interest groups to develop a new paradigm, the people of the United States might actually be able to access quality medical care when they need it, as they need it, without hassle or delay–something most people in this country have never experienced.

T. L. Kittle is the founder and CEO of the Blue Diamond Foundation, established to assist those who need access to quality medical care.


Suggests adults with asthma should receive pneumococcal vaccine

Mayo Clinic research shows adults with asthma are at increased risk of serious pneumococcal disease caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae, the most common bacteria causing middle ear infections and community acquired pneumonia. It also causes blood stream infections and brain infections. According to the Centers for Disease Control, pneumococcal infection is one of the leading causes of death from a vaccine-preventable disease. The researchers recommend including asthma as an indication for pneumococcal vaccination in adults. The results of the study were recently published in the October edition of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

“We found that adults with invasive pneumococcal disease, a serious, potentially fatal disease, are seven times more likely to be asthmatics. Our study also showed that 17 percent of the burden of invasive pneumococcal disease can be attributable to asthma at a population level. This is quite a significant impact on the burden of invasive pneumococcal disease,” says Young Juhn, M.D., a pediatric and adolescent medicine physician-scientist at Mayo Clinic and lead author of the study. “Invasive pneumococcal disease is a vaccine-preventable disease. The implication is that we have the ability to significantly reduce instances of this potentially fatal disease by expanding the indication for the pneumococcal vaccine to include adults with asthma.”

Researchers used a population-based, retrospective case-control study of 3,941 records from the Rochester, Minn. population to see if there was a higher incidence of pneumococcal disease among people with asthma. Adults diagnosed with asthma were almost seven times more likely to develop invasive pneumococcal diseases than adults who were not diagnosed with asthma. In children the sample size for was not large enough to draw a definitive conclusion.

“The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which is the governing body for immunization practices in the United States, voted unanimously to include asthma as a pneumococcal vaccine condition at the recent ACIP meeting in October, 2008. Adults with asthma should receive the pneumococcal vaccine,” says Dr. Juhn.

Further research implications include finding out why a connection exists between instances of pneumococcal disease and asthma, determining whether the connection between asthma and this particular bacterial infection also exists with other bacterial infections, such as pertussis (whooping cough), and the connection between asthma and other non-infectious diseases, such as inflammatory bowel disease, juvenile diabetes, and rheumatoid arthritis. Dr. Juhn does not believe all asthmatic patients react the same way. He is looking for a subset of asthmatic patients who have an increased susceptibility to microbial infection.

Study authors, in addition to Dr. Juhn, include Hirohito Kita, M.D., Department of Allergic Diseases Research, Mayo Clinic; Barbara Yawn, M.D., Department of Epidemiology, Mayo Clinic; Thomas Boyce, M.D., Department of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Mayo Clinic; Kwang Yoo, M.D., Ph.D., Department of Internal Medicine, Kunkook University, Republic of Korea; Michaela McGree, Department of Biostatistics, Mayo Clinic; Amy Weaver, Department of Biostatistics, Mayo Clinic; Peter Wollan, Ph.D., Department of Epidemiology, Mayo Clinic; and Robert Jacobson, M.D., Department of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, Mayo Clinic.

Source: Mayo Clinic


Department Reminds Pennsylvanians to Get a Flu Shot

A girl in Lehigh County is this season’s first state laboratory-confirmed case of influenza in Pennsylvania’s northeast region, the Department of Health said today.

“We want to remind Pennsylvanians that it’s still early in the flu season and it is not too late to get a flu shot,” said acting Health Secretary Everette James. “It is the best way to protect yourself and those around you, and there is plenty of vaccine available.”

The influenza vaccine is recommended for the following high-risk individuals:

  • All children 6 months through 18 years of age;
  • People 50 years of age and older regardless of their medical history;
  • People with underlying health conditions such as heart, respiratory, kidney, liver metabolic, and immune system problems;
  • People with weakened immune systems such as HIV/AIDS, long-term treatment of steroids, and cancer treatment with X-rays or drugs;
  • People who have cognitive dysfunction, and muscle or nerve disorders (such as spinal cord injury, cerebral palsy or seizure disorders) that can lead to breathing or swallowing problems;
  • People who are receiving long-term aspirin therapy who, therefore, might be at risk for Reyes syndrome after influenza infection;
  • Residents of nursing homes and other chronic-care facilities;
  • Women who will be pregnant anytime during the influenza season;
  • Household contacts and out-of-home caregivers of children 0-59 months of age;
  • Physicians, nurses, family members, or anyone else in close contact with any of these groups at risk for influenza; and
  • Anyone wishing to reduce the likelihood of becoming ill from influenza.

Each year, an estimated 36,000 individuals die from influenza-related illnesses and more than 200,000 people are hospitalized nationwide. Rates of serious illness and death are highest among people over the age of 65 and individuals of any age who have chronic medical conditions that place them at increased risk for complications from influenza.

Recommended ways to prevent the spread of the flu include frequent hand washing, covering your nose and mouth when sneezing or coughing, and, when possible, avoiding contact with others when you are sick. It is also important to consult with your medical provider as soon as the first symptoms of influenza appear since certain antiviral prescription drugs may lessen the duration and severity of the illness if taken early.

Flu cases traditionally peak between January and March, so individuals should consider getting vaccinated now. It takes one to two weeks to build up immunity after receiving the flu vaccine.

For more information on influenza, contact the Department of Health at 1-877-PA-HEALTH or visit www.health.state.pa.us/flu.


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