Inspection Week
Apparently, Medicare inspects nursing homes periodically and this is PH&R's week. There are three "surveyors" here who have been here since Wednesday and will be back on Monday and Tuesday. They've been watching the staff, making them nervous to various extents. The results of the inspection are posted on Medicare's website and were apparently used by US News & World Reports for its ratings, which was what I referred to when I was looking for a facility.
If you look at Pacific Health & Rehabilitation's page now (you'll have to actually search for it since there's no direct URL for it), you'll see a lot of low scores. When I was first looking for a place to go, this place seemed like the worst choice based on the scores I saw at the US News site. But someone pointed out that sometimes the places with the lowest scores turn out to be the best because they are working to raise their score. And Tony liked the place when he visited. So when I called and talked to Sherry, the Head of Nursing, I asked her about the scores I saw. She said that the place had previously had a lot of problems and that she had been hired to fix it; that what she did was go around to different homes to fix them and that she had been here since last January. She said she expected the scores to improve this year.
I talked to Kent, the owner and administrator, this evening because he happened to be right outside my door. I asked him who was doing this inspection and he told me it was Medicare. He said that various inspections are done throughout the year by various groups, but that this was the most important one. I told him about the US News report that I'd seen and he said that he bought the place last year with the intention of fixing it up. He said that they've already been dinged on a few things in this inspection but otherwise he thought it was going well. As I've mentioned before, his own grandmother is living here. She may or may not be getting special treatment, but she eats with us at social dining and she mostly eats the same food we do (actually, she gets a special tray but I think that's because she's on a special diet, which seems to be pretty much the same as everyone else's but more boring, not better).
My personal feeling about this place is that it's pretty good. The staff all seem competent and caring, and it seems quite clean to me. The food isn't anything to write home about, but it's not bad considering that it's institutional food. When I was talking with Kent about it, he said something about it being noisy. This is because I had previously talked to him about the importance of keeping my door closed because the dining room is across the hall and it tends to get very noisy outside my room. I said, "Yeah, but even living in an apartment, you have to deal with noise." With my door closed, the worst noise I have to deal with is the guy next door who seems to yell a lot and move furniture around, but that's due to his particular condition and I've mostly gotten used to it.
Anyway, the inspection has made some of the staff nervous and stressed. But I thought it was funny when one CNA told me that everyone is on their best behavior and being more helpful than usual, and that things are running smoothly as a result. I said, "So, people do what they're supposed to do and things run more smoothly. What a concept!"
If you look at Pacific Health & Rehabilitation's page now (you'll have to actually search for it since there's no direct URL for it), you'll see a lot of low scores. When I was first looking for a place to go, this place seemed like the worst choice based on the scores I saw at the US News site. But someone pointed out that sometimes the places with the lowest scores turn out to be the best because they are working to raise their score. And Tony liked the place when he visited. So when I called and talked to Sherry, the Head of Nursing, I asked her about the scores I saw. She said that the place had previously had a lot of problems and that she had been hired to fix it; that what she did was go around to different homes to fix them and that she had been here since last January. She said she expected the scores to improve this year.
I talked to Kent, the owner and administrator, this evening because he happened to be right outside my door. I asked him who was doing this inspection and he told me it was Medicare. He said that various inspections are done throughout the year by various groups, but that this was the most important one. I told him about the US News report that I'd seen and he said that he bought the place last year with the intention of fixing it up. He said that they've already been dinged on a few things in this inspection but otherwise he thought it was going well. As I've mentioned before, his own grandmother is living here. She may or may not be getting special treatment, but she eats with us at social dining and she mostly eats the same food we do (actually, she gets a special tray but I think that's because she's on a special diet, which seems to be pretty much the same as everyone else's but more boring, not better).
My personal feeling about this place is that it's pretty good. The staff all seem competent and caring, and it seems quite clean to me. The food isn't anything to write home about, but it's not bad considering that it's institutional food. When I was talking with Kent about it, he said something about it being noisy. This is because I had previously talked to him about the importance of keeping my door closed because the dining room is across the hall and it tends to get very noisy outside my room. I said, "Yeah, but even living in an apartment, you have to deal with noise." With my door closed, the worst noise I have to deal with is the guy next door who seems to yell a lot and move furniture around, but that's due to his particular condition and I've mostly gotten used to it.
Anyway, the inspection has made some of the staff nervous and stressed. But I thought it was funny when one CNA told me that everyone is on their best behavior and being more helpful than usual, and that things are running smoothly as a result. I said, "So, people do what they're supposed to do and things run more smoothly. What a concept!"