By Felice Freyer / The Providence Journal - Nine out of ten residents of nursing homes in Rhode Island -- and the same proportion of their relatives -- are satisfied with the care patients receive, according to a recent survey.
That percentage is higher than the average of 5,087 other nursing homes around the country that participated in an identical survey.
In Rhode Island, 91 percent of residents and 91 percent of family members rated their nursing homes as either "Good" or "Excellent" in 2008, in the third annual patient-satisfaction survey of nursing homes. All 90 nursing homes participated.
At the nursing homes elsewhere that participated in the survey, which add up to roughly a third of the nation's nursing homes, 87 percent of residents and 85 percent of family members had such high satisfaction.
The survey results have been compiled into a list rating each nursing home in Rhode Island in comparison to others within the state, based on how residents and families feel about the medical care and services, and whether the place is comfortable to live in.
Information on how an individual nursing home compares with the national average is not being made publicly available.
Kathleen Heren of the Rhode Island Alliance for Better Long Term Care, an advocacy group, said that she is skeptical of satisfaction surveys because the choice of respondents can bias the results. But even so, she believes these high scores reflect reality in Rhode Island.
"I think we have excellent nursing homes in Rhode Island. I really do," said Heren, who has visited nursing homes in the Midwest and the South.
"It really shouldn't surprise anybody," said Virginia M. Burke, president and CEO of the Rhode Island Health Care Association, a nursing home trade group. "We do very well on virtually every national measure of quality."
But Burke said that planned cuts to the state Medicaid program, which pays for most nursing home care, could "devastate quality of care at nursing homes."
The survey, conducted last fall, is part of a state Health Department effort, mandated by a 1998 law, to measure and report on the quality of care in every health care institution. Consumers have long had access to information about inspections and clinical care, and in 2006 the state began asking what it's like to live in each nursing home. In 2007, the state hired My InnerView Inc., a national company, to conduct the survey. The results that year were similar to 2008.
Gail Patry, senior director quality programs at Quality Partners of Rhode Island -- the agency hired by the Health Department to oversee the survey process -- said the high scores result from statewide efforts to focus care on the needs of individuals rather than institutions. For example, some nursing homes are changing their food services so that residents can choose when and what to eat.
James P. Nyberg, director of the Rhode Island Association of Facilities and Services for the Aging, said that the satisfaction results should "reduce some of the stress and anxiety that individuals and family members feel" when choosing a nursing home. "They will find, and the results bear this out, that nursing homes today are much different than they were years ago."