Consumers now have another tool to help them evaluate nursing homes statewide.
The Ohio Department of Aging recently released its updated Ohio Long-term Care Consumer Guide to include new family satisfaction survey scores.
Family members of nursing home residents were asked their opinions about whether they liked the facility or would recommend it to others.
The searchable website — www.ltcohio.org — also includes results from a 2011 survey of nursing home residents, as well as inspection results, rates, staffing ratios and other information.
More than 50 percent of the top 25-ranked nursing homes in the family survey are not-for-profit facilities, according to LeadingAge Ohio, a nonprofit association that represents nonprofit senior service organizations.
The top-ranked facility for family satisfaction in Summit County is Regina Health Center, a nonprofit facility in Richfield run by the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine. The facility earned an overall satisfaction score of 93.3 out of 100 from family members of residents.
“Regina Health Center regularly ranks highly in family satisfaction surveys thanks in part to our high scores in health inspections, committed nursing staff and notable quality-of-care measures,” Regina Health Center Executive Director Brian J. Flannery said in a prepared statement. “Importantly, all of our staff members are dedicated to providing compassionate and holistic health-care services in an atmosphere that reflects the core values of spirituality and shared community life.”
Marriage healthful?
When it comes to matters of the heart, marriage might be just what the cardiologist ordered.
A new population-based study from Finland published last week in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology found that unmarried patients — males and females — had an increased risk of suffering a fatal or nonfatal heart attack.
The researchers determined that being married or living with a partner was associated with a “considerably better prognosis of acute cardiac events both before hospitalization and after reaching the hospital alive.”
Cardiac events were 58 to 66 percent higher among unmarried men and 60 to 65 percent higher in unmarried women than among married men and women in all age groups, according to the report.
The authors suggested people with poor health status might be more prone to staying single or getting divorced.
The differences also could be attributable to married people potentially having more support, the researchers said.
Screenings ranked
A new report from Consumer Reports concludes screenings for cervical, colon and breast cancers are the most effective screening tests available, while several others should be avoided by most patients.
The report — available online at www.consumerreports.org or in the March issue — rates the screenings primarily based on reviews from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent group supported by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The report determined most people don’t benefit from screenings for bladder, lung, oral, ovarian, prostate, pancreatic, skin and testicular cancers.
“We know from our surveys that consumers approach screenings with an ‘I have nothing to lose’ attitude, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Unfortunately, some health organizations have promulgated this belief, inflating the benefits of cancer screenings while minimizing the harm they can do,” Dr. John Santa, director of the Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center, said in a news release. “To help clarify when most consumers should use cancer screenings and when they should skip them, we rate each screening and whether it is useful for a specific age group. We also try to identify some high risk factors that may make screening a reasonable choice.”
Cheryl Powell can be reached at 330-996-3902 or cpowell@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow Powell on Twitter at twitter.com/abjcherylpowell.