Web site rates nursing homes

To the editor:
    Choosing a nursing home or a rehab facility for a family member can be a challenging task. If you have not had any first-hand accounts from people who have received services at such, you may wish to consult the Web site Medicare has established for this. This Web site will provide you with information on any nursing home in the United States.     To access this Web site, go to www.medicare.gov/nhcompare where the first screen will ask you to choose a nursing home’s location by State, City, Zip Code, etc. When entering such, also identify what distance from this Zip Code or Town, etc. you want to find a nursing home, then click on Next Step. You are then presented with a list of nursing homes within the distance you selected. Put a checkmark in the box of the nursing home you are interested in and again, click on Next Step. The next screen gives you the number of licensing violations or “Deficiencies” as determined by the most recent government inspection of the selected nursing home and the number of hours of Nurse and CNA staff time per resident per day. CNAs provide the bulk of hands-on care in nursing homes therefore the number of CNA hours per resident per day is a very important number to take note of when comparing nursing homes.
    If you want more information, click on View all information about this nursing home and at the next screen, scroll down a bit and click Show All on the left side. The first information is called Quality Measures and shows various characteristics of the residents in the selected nursing home compared to state and national averages. Some of these characteristics are directly related to what type of residents the nursing home provides services to, for example a nursing home with an active rehabilitation program will have more short-term residents with pain because a large number of residents are fresh post-op and pain after surgery is common.
    Further down you’ll again see the number of hours for licensed nurses and CNAs but this time it compares the selected nursing home to the state and national average. In the case of Caribou Rehab and Nursing Center, the average number of CNA hours per resident per day is 4 hours and 30 minutes compared to the averages for Maine of 3 hours and 6 minutes and for the USA of 2 hours and 18 minutes. As I mentioned above, CNAs deliver the bulk of hands-on care in nursing homes, therefore more CNA hours results in more care provided.
    I hope you have found this information helpful.
Philip A. Cyr, administrator
Caribou Rehab & Nursing Center