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Nazareth, Pa., United States

Tuesday, August 01, 2017

Gracedale Rating Back Up to Two Stars

According to Medicare, the overall rating at Gracedale is now two stars, thanks to an increase to two stars in its rating for "quality measures," which is resident care. This rating means the nursing home is "below average" as opposed to "much below average." It is unclear whether this new rating is the result of an inspection or its based on adata that the nursing home itself reported.

Raymond Soto, Premier's Administrator at Gracedale, had predicted to Council last month that the overall rating would stay at one star until next year.

According to The Pittsburgh Post Gazette, two more public nursing homes in Butler and Armstrong County have privatized in the past year. Interestingly, they were purchased by Premier Healthcare Management, NorCo's contracted administrator at Gracedale. The number of county-owned nursing homes has dropped from 36 in 2004 to just 18 today.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Deserves ZERO stars with the Clown administration zero talent running it.

Anonymous said...

I don't think Premeir Healthcare Management (the company you referenced in this post) and Premier Healthcare Resources (the company managing Gracedale) are the same thing.

Anonymous said...

Time to sell the place !

Bernie O'Hare said...

2:35, I may be mistaken, but suspect the same people must be in control. I believe that when Premier was first brought one, part of the contract required that it would offer no bid if the nursing home was sold. Hopefully, that language is still there. Otherwise, there is a conflict of interest.

Anonymous said...

Another pitch by O'Hare for his pal Angle who still wants to sell Gracedale.

Bernie O'Hare said...

I fail to see how noting that Gracedale's rating has gone up is somehow a pitch to sell the nursing home. As far as the sale of two public homes, that is news and people should know because it will reduce the intergovernmental transfer.

Anonymous said...

It should have been sold. Stoffa and Angle were right all along. We'll just keep paying and paying and paying .....

Anonymous said...

Stoffa and Angle had a plan to dump Gracedale, pocket the money for Stoffa's building and cut the workforce. The hell with the disabled and the poor elderly. You 20% who don't give a daman about anyone but yourselves love them but the vast majority are glad they are long gone.

Anonymous said...

Anon 6:03 speaks out of ignorance. Stoffa did not need a Gracedale sale to build the DHS building. He sold 50 year old Bechtel and 100 year old Wolf building to do that. But a portion of the $35 million sale of Gracedale would have gone to senior care services in the home, as well as a myriad of other services. Plus saving annual operational costs, personnel and pension costs that would have saved the county millions. And the poor elderly and disabled would still be covered by Medicaid.

Anonymous said...

"He sold 50 year old Bechtel and 100 year old Wolf building to do that."

Did not even come close. The sale proceeds would have been gobbled up and used for things unrelated to services. Also many disabled and poor elderly cannot be cared for in a home. The cost of this is prohibitive and in most cases the skill level is just not there. Medicaid cuts threaten private home admissions. Sorry but your fake facts and revisionist history won't work anymore. Nice try but your BS. isn't flying.

Anonymous said...

Dump Premiere and Ray Soto! Zero talent! Look at cedar brook! Doing OK!

Anonymous said...

@6:03
The public may have a change in attitude as county taxes keep increasing and expensive money losing burdens are looked at for elimination. You say 20% don't want it (I'm assuming this figure wasn't pulled out of your ass). See what the percentage becomes after the next tax increase.

Anonymous said...

sell the white elephant drain on the citizens. Rid us of costs such as the under worked and over paid union whiners. Think of the majority, not about a hand full that are on death row anyway.

Anonymous said...

I do not know how the care is at Gracedale now. I can speak about care given a family member during the years 2006-2008. At that time the aides were in control of much of the place. Because of staffing issues an aide could be given time off with out pay for 2 days for neglect of a patient and then be offered premium pay that week for working a holiday double shift. What a way to destroy the morale of the other staff! At that time only male aides were allowed to use Hoyer lifts to get patients back in bed. They were a separate team that in the evening would go floor to floor to get patients back in bed. A patient could be dead tired slumped over in the wheelchair and they would have to wait. How would you like to sit from 9 in the morning to 8 at night? A problem would arise when a new aide was hired and because of prior experience in another nursing home she would put her patient into bed using a hoyer lift when required. All staff were trained in use of hoyer. And this female aide would deliver safe lifts with hoyer. The union reps would flip out because this was "taking a job away from a male worker" that got higher pay. A hoyer lift does not require a male to operate. The real reason this team existed was guys(generally having superior strength) often would not use the lift but use a bedsheet. This is quicker but unsafe and was not an approved policy. If patient comfort and safety was truly first the staffing would address the patients" needs. The charge nurses all knew this but got no support from management. As one aide told me "the care is not that much better than other homes" but "Gracedale hides its problems better."

Anonymous said...

To anon 7:36 AM
You are one sick bastard. I hope your parents had you sterilized because you shouldn't be allowed to reproduce offspring. Your heartless and callous comments about patients at Gracedale being on "death row" should have been enough for the "Blog Administrator" to remove your comment for the reason of pure lunacy, but it also serves as a prime example of the sick demented bastards that contribute to this Blog.
By the way, I had relatives that were at Gracedale and the care they received was loving and sincere from a staff of truly caring professionals.

Bernie O'Hare said...

7:36, The majority voted to keep Gracedale while you lack the courage to even say who you are.