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New Nursing Home Data Complements Marketing
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Business New Haven
11/25/2002
By: Melissa Nicefaro
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In a new government effort to help families make better decisions regarding care for loved ones, information about all 17,000 nursing homes nationwide is now publicly available through one source.
The primary purpose of this tool - known as Nursing Home Compare - is to provide detailed information about the past performance of every Medicare- and Medicaid-certified nursing home in the country.
Nursing Home Compare (online at www.medicare.com or by phone at 800-MEDICARE) contains the following categories of information:
- About the nursing home - Including number of beds and particulars of ownership.
- Quality measures - Provides data on quality measures including such key information as percentage of residents with pressure (bed) sores, percent of residents with physical restraints and more.
- Inspection result information - Including health deficiencies found during the most recent state nursing home survey and from recent complaint investigations.
- Nursing home staff information - Including the average number of hours worked by registered nurses, licensed practical or vocational nurses, and certified nursing assistants per resident per day.
Toni Fatone, executive vice president of the Connecticut Association of Health Care Facilities, says the recent release of nursing home data is a positive thing for the industry.
"We've been saying here in Connecticut that there is quality care, but we never had a data tool to quantify that," says Fatone. "You'll see Connecticut's facilities are below average (for number of incidents, complaints or reports) on a state level and far below average on a national level."
The data can be tremendously useful, but it can also be confusing. For example, a nursing home that specializes in wound care may naturally appear to have a higher incidence of patients with wounds. There is no allowance for disclaimers in the government's new program, Fatone says. "As the initiative rolls out, more data may be available," she notes.
The data may not be the best marketing tool for poor facilities, but will surely help patients and families find first-rate nursing-home care.
Nursing homes' strongest marketing advantages can come from the relationships they have built with hospitals. Three-quarters of all nursing-home residents come from hospitals. And since most consumers do not give much thought to nursing homes until they need one - often at a time of great stress - the professional at the hospital caring for an aging mother or father may be the best resource.
Fatone says there are nursing homes in all of the state's 169 municipalities. A search on the nursing home data source turns up 254 statewide, 68 in New Haven County and eight in the city of New Haven.
"People drive by facilities every day and never know it," Fatone says. Not all nursing homes are large and look like hospitals. Some are small and could pass for a regular house.
"Just like you don't know day-care centers until you have kids, you don't know about nursing homes until you need one," Fatone says.
Like any business, nursing homes must be sold to potential "customers." "This report may be a good marketing tool if it were a be-all, end-all, or only source of information, but it's still up to the individual homes to get their name awareness out there," explains Fatone.
As with most other industries, the best marketing tools for a nursing home is a good reputation. "When the time comes, I urge people to talk to their friends, family and physicians," Fatone says.
A smaller facility without a large marketing budget relies on word-of-mouth referrals to get the word out. Nursing homes are no different from any other business. A vast number of them are small and family-owned.
Fatone and the creators of the database urge consumers to interpret the reports carefully and use them in conjunction with other sources including a visit to the nursing home.
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