Long Term Acute Care - Finding A Quality Facility

When one talks about long term acute care whether that is care of an elderly parent, an incapacitated friend or relative that can no longer care for themselves, and for whatever reason, in-home care for them is simply not an available option. Therefore, the only option that is left is for them to be cared for in a nursing home.

If, you now find yourself in the position of having arrived at a point where you must make the decision about how to provide for the long term acute care of a loved one, there is hardly a more difficult decision to be made. All that is really left is to find the best nursing home facility to provide such care. As discussed in the article on this site titled ‘Long Term Care Nursing Homes’ there were 15 questions to ask a facility before finalizing a decision….please refer to them…..however, what we will expound on here is some preconceived notions associated with selecting quality nursing home care. .

1. The smell of cleanliness. If it smells clean it must be clean, right? Wrong. Nursing home administrators recognize the value of the smell test, and will readily clean up any area that receives visitors. Therefore, when inspecting a nursing facility, check further and deeper than what you’re being shown on a tour of it.

2. Don’t rely on a Personal Recommendation. Should someone be giving you a personal recommendation on a nursing home, the first thing you want to know is how much extensive interaction the person giving the recommendation has had with the facility, and how often did they visit the person residing there.

3. You do not necessarily ‘Get What You Pay For . Particularly with nursing homes, price is not a primary indicator of the quality of care. Some low cost facilities provide an excellent quality of care, while an expensive facility may have eye-appeal, but that does not insure that they offer quality care to its residents.

4. Falicity Staff - this also is not true. While, certainly, an understaffed facility should be avoided at all costs, the measure of the staff is not in the numbers but in their motivation and attitude towards the residents.

While a report by the Senate's Special Committee on Aging concluded that quality care for a single nursing home resident requires more than three hours each day of nursing and nursing aide time, it also concluded, based on statistical analysis of nursing home deficiencies, that there is no relationship between quality of care and staffing levels.

5. A well-known chain will provide better care. Again that may or may not be true. The only way to know for sure is to look into the company’s history.

In the end what one is left with, is to take the time and do the research for oneself when faced with having to make this difficult decision. When it comes to deciding on the long term acute care of someone, there simply is no substitute, for doing one’s own investigating.

Long Term Care