Great care is important to everyone. However, when the need arises to choose care – for either a loved one or ourself – it often happens at a critical time when decisions must be made quickly and with limited information. So whether you are looking for short term nursing or rehabilitation, long term care, or home health services, here are five top factors to consider:

  Quality

Every healthcare provider talks about providing ‘quality care’. How can you tell if a nursing facility or home health care agency actually delivers quality care and services?

Providing consistently excellent quality of care and quality of life for each resident or patient should be the main goal of any nursing facility or home health care agency. It is most definitely the objective of both Cedar Crest and Cedar Home Health.

For nursing facilities and home health care, measuring ‘quality’ goes hand-in-hand with providing care. The daily life for each includes collecting data about the care they provide. This important data collection is as part of our federally mandated process for clinical assessment of all residents and patients receiving Medicare or Medicaid benefits. This process provides a comprehensive assessment of each resident or patient’s functional capabilities and helps nursing staff identify health problems. The data is also used to target clinical areas for quality care improvement.

For the consumer, determining ‘customer satisfaction’ is a key factor in determining quality. Cedar Crest, along with every nursing home in Rhode Island, participates annually in a Resident and Family Satisfaction Survey sponsored by The RI Department of Health. We also send out our own satisfaction surveys on a regular basis. We are pleased to report that Cedar Crest scores consistently well and that *98% of our respondents on a recent survey would recommend us to others.

* Source: 2010 Resident/Family Satisfaction Survey conducted by My Innerview for the Rhode Island Department of Heath

Other important markers of quality include:

• Has the facility received any national awards for quality care?
  
  Cedar Crest worked diligently to become the first independently owned and operated facility in the country to receive the American Health Care Association Step I Quality Award. To learn more, click here.

• Is the facility or agency accredited by The Joint Commission (TJC)?

The Joint Commission is our nation’s recognized gold standard for quality health care organizations. Obtaining TJC accreditation is voluntary, expensive and very hard earned. However, those that do receive this special designation are set apart from their peers in term of high quality care. Cedar Crest has been accredited for over ten years. Cedar Home Health received Joint Commission Accreditation as part of certification for Medicare. For more information, click here.

  Experience

How long has the company been in operation? How long has its management staff worked together? What services are the staff experienced with?

When choosing a nursing facility, adding up experience –whether in years of service or scope of services – is extremely important. Cedar Crest recently celebrated its 40th year of operation, remaining independently operated and owned by a pioneering family in Rhode Island’s health care arena. Management staff has worked together for decades – with patients and residents benefiting from their shared expertise and broad perspectives of care. In terms of services, Cedar Crest has strategically evolved from to a fast-paced facility that provides short-term sub-acute and rehabilitation services, as well as long-term care and memory-care for more than 1000 people that are admitted each year.

Developing Cedar Home Health was a well-studied addition to The Cedars continuum of care. It provides our patients with unparalleled continuity of quality care that is founded on over 40 years of experience. Patients who receive care at Cedar Crest often require home health care services after discharge. These services help to ease the transition home and accomplish goals to maximize his or her independence. Over the years, Cedar Crest patients often told us that he or she wished that their therapists from Cedar Crest could follow them home. This desire was a driving force behind the decision to start Cedar Home Health. Cedar Crest patients that choose to use the services of Cedar Home Health are confident that their health care team will be already familiar with their health condition and plan of care. Those that come to us from other referral sources can rest assured that they have not only highly trained professionals in their home, but access to an entire team of experts behind the scenes.

  Knowledge

What expertise does the facility or agency have with various areas of care? How knowledgeable is their staff?

Cedar Crest has a wide scope of expertise from sub-acute services to specialized training in Alzheimer’s care. We provide patient care for numerous specialized programs including Cardiac Care, Neurological Rehabilitation, Orthopedic Rehabilitation, Oncology Management, Post-surgical Care, and Pulmonary Rehabilitation. Our sub-acute and rehabilitation program is complimented by comprehensive skilled nursing and complex medical care services.

Cedar Home Health patients have access to a comprehensive spectrum of health care professionals, products and services. Services include skilled nursing, physical, occupational and speech therapies, as well as nursing assistance with the activities of daily living, as well as homemaker and companion services in the comfort of their own home.

  Staffing

How many staff members does the facility have? How many professional staff? Do they hold any special credentials?

Cedar Crest has one of the highest levels of professional staffing in Rhode Island –exceeding both the state and national levels for total number of licensed nurse staff hours per resident per day; RN hours per day; and Certified Nursing Assistant hours per resident per day. Cedar Crest is also uniquely advantaged by employing 18 full-time, licensed therapists, offering physical, occupational and speech therapy. In total, Cedar Crest has more than 230 employees.

All of our staff receives ongoing clinical education, on a daily, monthly and annual basis. Many of our staff has special designations as well. For example our Director of Nursing is Wound Care Certified (WCC®) by The National Alliance of Wound Care® which indicates that she possesses the qualifications to deliver the highest standard in wound care to her patients.

  Satisfaction

Are the patients, residents and family members satisfied with the facility? Would they recommend it to others?

It is understood that the only way to maintain excellence is to listen to your customers and never rest on your laurels. This is why both Cedar Crest and Cedar Home Health regularly survey our patients, residents and families, as well as key stakeholders like physicians, to understand their level of satisfaction. We use our finding to improve all areas of service and care.

We look forward to hearing from you about your experience with Cedar Crest or Cedar Home Health. While you can expect to receive a satisfaction survey in the mail after discharge from our care, we also encourage you to provide us with comments at anytime and have therefore created an online Satisfaction Survey which you can take by clicking here. It is always our greatest compliment to receive a referral from a patient, resident or family member. We thank you for your trust.