When considering a nursing home for a loved one, it's good to know that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid created a five-star quality rating. In his annual "State of the County" Address at Hotel Bethlehem, Executive John Brown claimed a four-star rating. But at that time, as he later conceded, Gracedale was just three stars, or "average." Its overall rating has since dropped to
two stars, or "below average." One of the biggest reasons for this is the home's rating is for "quality measures," which measures things like the use of psychotropic drugs, pain management, bed sores and infections. Gracedale has just one star in this category, which is considered "much below average."
At a standard health inspection in January,
14 health deficiencies were listed. This is well above the state average if 8.5.
24 comments:
and as long as John Brown and his cronies are in power the care at Gracedale will continue to decrease. Did you ever hear of "fair wages"? Keep cutting pensions. Keep cutting staff. Keep cutting quality care givers at your Nursing facility and keep asking why oh why is our nursing care diminishing? You get what you pay for.
The place needs to be down sized !
The voters have already spoken. The quality of care needs to improve.
Wow! With Cusick already back and Angle on his way back to county council we see you have your marching orders. The dump Gracedale movement never died, it is gearing back up for another go next year. Voters beware!
It's time to revisit the decision to privatize.
They County does not need to be in the healthcare business. Time to Sell !
Most of the deficiencies indicate poor staff training and or poor staff supervision.
They finally had a profit at Gracedale, but basic services are below average. What a tradeoff! Typical non-transparent John Brown and cronies approach to county services. Save a penny, lose a life. What do they care. Fire them all this election year!
Gracedale is not supposed to "turn a profit ". Stop trying to run it like a business and start delivering on the promise
The County does not belong in the nursing home business and yes it is a business. Sell it and move on.
Here we go again! Pitting one age group against another and long term care against profit margin. Gov. is not a business. It's goal is service at a fair price. Work the problem and stop yelling at each other. You sound like Wash. DC. Partisanship be damned! An important election looms friends and neighbors. Vote or suffer the consequences.
3:11, I am simply telling the truth you want to try it sometime
Cheap workforce = poor work performance , people who don't care or are lacking in education! This is the John Brown way with county services. Cut jobs, salaries, pensions and benefits in the workforce. He has been at it since taking office and services are getting to be piss poor.
Your 9:21 message doesn't seem to make sense. What does it mean?
My 9:21 comment is deleted as I wrote it without glasses. Let me explain in a little detail how I feel.
- Anyone who wants to sell Gracedale is perfectly free to go to Council and ask that it be placed on the ballot. But that person would have to identify himself. I think most of the bold "sell Gracedale" advocates are uninformed cowards who are afraid to say who they are.
- I supported the sake of Gracedale several years ago and fought to keep the question off the ballot. But the people have spoken very convincingly and I believe strongly in democracy. The obligation now is to make Gracedale work.
- In addition to believing in democracy, what turned my thinking around was seeing how much the people who work at Gracedale care about the residents. They really do take residents home on holidays. They voluntarily gave up $2.5 million per year to keep the nursing home afloat. I respect this selflessness very much.
- I do not believe in whitewashing the truth or lying about the nursing home.The facility appears to have turned a profit last year, thanks to many improvements and a federal grant called the IGT. But I believe in being honest about it. Bob Werner wants to pretend the facility had a profit of over $1 million when it is really only about $200,000. Be honest. Tell the truth.
- The drop in stars from four to two and the terrible rating in quality measures is evidence that the people who are running the facility, from Council to Advisory Board to Brown to Premiere, are screwing up. I know that Council has been applying heavy doses of whitewash. Last month they scrutinized things like OT and talked with the Premiere about shipping off cost ineffective residents to NJ. This betrays a complete insensitivity to the humanity of these residents. It is little wonder that this poor attitude results on a poor score for quality measures. I do not think this criticism applies to Soto, who seems to really care. But he is getting instructions from a dollar-conscious and people-insensitive board.
- Brown has squeezed just about every penny he can out of the facility. It will soon start losing money again, even with a dollar-conscious and people-insensitive board. There are only 688 beds. The challenge will be to minimize the county contribution. I am sure Trump will eliminate the IGT next year.
When you have an administration who wants to cut the workforce and get rid of certian postions you will have this you trade off less workers to more patients and not good things happen maybe we should bring back restoritve aides and the orderly spots
No one buys the story that this is not a Ron Angle directed attempt to once again try and dump Gracedale.
I have explained where I stand and why, and don't really give a shit what some anonymous turd thinks.
What we have here is a problem at the federal level. Both Cedarbrook in Lehigh County and Gracedale are not compensated at the same level as private nursing homes. This is a result of corporate lobbyists seizing control over congressional members in Washington. Shit rolls down hill--this should serve as an example.
If people don't want the counties to pick up these needed services maybe they should ask why the federal government hasn't. provided these same type of homes. In many cases the responsibility falls upon local communities by necessity. Those in least populated rural areas of the United States.
Of course if your a rich investor in nursing homes, have kids willing to put up with you crapping in your pants administering meds while they try and go to work/raising kids of their own or someone who'll never grow old none of this matters.
It would be political suicide for Brown to even utter anything bad about Gracedale. The rating is what it is. Hopefully the next one will be better. The employees are doing the best they can under difficult circumstances and the job they do is to be commended. It is a thankless job and I admire their dedication to their patients. Public service is a way of life for them and we need to support them and help them do better if possible. Stop balancing the budget on their backs as it is the easy way out rather than making difficult calls to insure continued good care of those who need it so badly.
You are unaware of the stealth campaign the republicans have to dump Gracedale after the county elections this Fall. They win and next year Gracedale is gone.
0% defencencies is where Gracedale was when Andrew Grossman started back in maybe 2014 as director of Mental Health, Developmental Delays and Early Intervention. This is what he strove for. For these words he received an 11% illegal pay raise from John Brown and crew. So clueless was he or pretended to be to all the money Lehigh Valley Community Mental Health Clinics were for stealing County Tax Payer dollars for services never provided to clients. Let alone he and his Assistant Brian Watson were getting paid the big bucks to have their secretaries write the grants for them since they were clueless. Guess you are still striving for the current Gracedale defencies Andrew Gross!!!! Your aim is getting better!�� Maybe salary should get lower����.
Thank God for Gracedale.
2:06 am. What does Andy G and Brian W have to do with Gracedale? They get enough credit messing up their own division! They are both clueless. Hired others that are also clueless. Never at work or sleeping when they are. Someone should come in and rate that division. Went from A+ to F-.
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