Pa's Department of Health (DOH) maintains a nursing home facility locator. You can search for homes by county, zip code, city or do a radius search. You can search just county-owned homes, state-owned home, nonprofiit or for-profit homes. Once you find a home, you can click on patient care surveys and see them for yourself. But as NorCo Council member Dave Holland has observed, there is a 41-day lag between when a deficiency is observed and when it appears on the DOH website.
During 2025, Gracedale was cited for eight deficiencies on 4/16 (bedsores), 6/25 (abuse), 8/11 (staffing), 9/19 (elopement), 9/23 (elopement), 10/2 (elopement), 10/17 (abuse) and 11/18 (staffing). (I have previously detailed these deficiencies both here and here.) How is it doing this year, and how does that stack up against other the 14 county-owned nursing homes? Let's check.
In 2026, Gracedale has been cited just once during 5 visits so far. The one citation is for poor staffing.
Berks Heim (Berks County) has had no visits or citations this year.
Cedarbrook (Lehigh County) was visited once, but no deficiency was substantiated.
Indian Haven (Indiana County) was visited three times, but no deficiency was found.
Fair Acres (Delaware County) was visited twice and cited once. ,
John J Kane (Glen Hazel - Allegheny County) was visited once, and there was no deficiency.
According to the DOH nursing home facility locator, Gracedale remains the only county-owned nursing home with a provisional license. It still provides the lowest amount of nursing care to the residents.
John J Kane (McKeesport - Allegheny County) was visited twice and cited once.
John J Kane (Ross Tp - Allegheny County) was visited three times and with no citations.
John J Kane (Scott Tp - Allegheny County) was visited once and cited.
Neshaminy Manor (Bucks County) was visited and cited once.
Pleasant Ridge Manor-West (Erie County) was visited once with no deficiency found.
Pocopson Nursing Home (Chester County) has received no visits.
Rouse-Warren County Home (Warren County) was visited twice, with no deficiencies noted.
Westmoreland Manor (Westmoreland County) was cited visited once and no deficiencies were found.
20 comments:
And what steps have been taken, thus far, to fix the concerns? Has County Executive reported on actions versus suggested reform? Has council discussed problem solving for Gracedale?
Wow 56/67 counties in the Commonwealth neither own nor operate a nursing home. Yet somehow they manage to govern. Would be nice if the operating deficits were listed. Gracedale is likely the largest. Past time for Norco to exit this non core function.
Gracedale has nothing to stack. nothing but a dem feel good money pit.
5 visits. Those visits are the result of employees and/or former disgruntled employees calling the DOH. The complaints are anonymous and the DOH must come no matter what. They have no discretion. You see the difference; no other home has sick people trying to destroy it from within. The hope was that after McClure they’d give Zrinski a chance. Nope. They’re hateful and they won’t be happy until the home is closed.
While county-owned nursing homes are a unique subset of Pennsylvania nursing homes, so the comparison is relevent, it is also relevent to compare Gracedale to our regional (Lehigh Valley) facilities. Another very valid data point would be the number of IJ tags given out to all the nursing homes in our area, in the last 12 months vs the years before. You will find that the Scranton field office and the Lehigh Valley field office have given out an overwhelming number of IJs to our local facilites in the last 12 months. An IJ used to be a relatively rare tag, indicating potential for serious patient harm. So while Gracedale had a very difficult autumn in 2025, so did a large number of facilites in the valley, who had not seen an IJ in decades. The DOH does not comment on changes in protocols or deficiency criteria, but that has been a significant change in how the DOH assesses facilities and assigns IJ tags.
This is reason enough to continue pouring millions into the place. It's only money and people will (checks notes) die if we don't.
Gracedale - McClure's folly, McClure's downfall. RM is laughing his butt off. Your boy shot himself in the foot.
6:58, Sue Wandalowski would always say that, trying to minimize the importance of these visits. Keegan has done this, too. The reality is that every nursing home gets anonymous unfounded calls. It's true that Gracedale has received more of them so far this year, but it does tend to even out as time goes on. The reason that calls can be anonymous is to protect whistleblowers and residents from retaliation. I would much rather see DOH respond to an unfounded complaint than have them ignore real abuse.
If we see an IJ tag, that is a serious concern. They are not handed out like candy. In Gracedale there were three elopements. One resident was picked up about two miles away. That is serious stuff and completely inexcusable. I can look at other homes in the county to see how many have been tagged with IJ (immediate jeopardy). Do you have the data? If so, please share it. Or is this anecdotal?
Gracedale is also rated the worst nursing home in Northampton County. Statics don’t lie but the executive, and her right hand gal, Sue, apparently have all the answers now (hard to understand Tara through her constant gum chomping, though). Supposedly everything was going to be fixed by “waiting until April” (meeting videos don’t lie) but here it is almost May and what’s the answer? Spending more money and hiring two more people to oversee Gracedale. It is encouraging to see and hear David Holland (the one on council who actually has worked in the nursing home business ) and his wisdom and ideas but it is also then discouraging to see and hear that same council member back down and then compromise when the executive pouts and other council members disregard his ideas. Gracedale has too many beds that it can’t fill. It’s been years since it had a full census of 688 but no one seems to discuss that or question if the county has to pay to continue to license those “Medicaid” beds (believe it does). Instead of blaming employees for “calling the State”, maybe discuss if they have, why they have? Oh well! It’s only April. How much worse can it get?
To 9:25 and Bernie: I have been in this industry here since the 90s, and the LV Field office, which covers a large chunk of eastern PA, has never been so difficult. They have been under new leadership over the last 13 months and that leadership is taking a much stricter stance on the interpretation of incidents and deficiencies.
That contributes to why we are seeing the awful deficiencies locally at Gracedale and other facilities in the several counties under this field office’s purview. We all respect Moravian Hall Square here in the county, and they were slammed with a harm level deficiency last summer for a nurse protecting herself from a behavioral resident. Other solid facilities have been hit with more frequency and higher severity deficiencies than ever before. Gracedale certainly does have its issues, but the newer interpretation of those issues contributes to the low star rating. In your analysis, the local northampton, Lehigh, Berks, etc facilities that may not be popping in that small snippet at a time for harsher surveys now will be if you look at this a year from now.
I'm sure that Gracedale employees are nice people. But it's the worst LTCF in the county. I'd collect aluminum cans and sell my plasma to avoid sending a loved one there. Sending a loved one to Gracedale is mean and selfish. I think most county residents know this, thus the census that doesn't come close to capacity.
1:14 pm, Thanks very much for your insight. I will look at all facilities in NC.
You obviously have never visited Gracedale.
Until you have to go there…
A facility does not become a one star facility with a provisional license and an abuse warning if it is providing good care. Sadly it earned this rating and one should understand how that happened.
Right. I think people are forgetting that the majority of people in this facility really have nowhere else to go.
We have a County executive and council who are paid for oversight of governing the various responsibilities of our county. If there are problems, it’s time they stepped up .
Koo Koo Keegan at it again
Mean and selfish is harsh. You have no way of knowing anyone's situation. I agree in that it might not be the very best facility but not everyone can take a loved one in or afford the nicest nursing homes. Hope you never are in that predicament cause it sucks.
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