News Release

March 25, 2003

Columbus Colony Elderly Care in Westerville to Participate in Nursing Home Quality Initiative Project, Achieves Perfect Score in Annual State Inspection for Deficiencies

WESTERVILLE, OH - Columbus Colony Elderly Care wants to keep its high reputation for nursing home care by stressing its quality of care for residents, and that philosophy is paying off on a couple fronts at the state and federal levels.

Last week state inspectors from the Ohio Department of Health participated in the annual state survey of CCEC and found no deficiencies for the Westerville skilled care facility. As mandated by state law, the annual survey process was implemented to point out deficiencies in the operation of long term skilled facilities. Any cited deficiency requires a plan of correction written and mailed to the Department of Health. Achieving a perfect survey is rare in the industry.

“The rules for long-term skilled nursing facilities are stringently enforced in Ohio in order to push for high standards in the care of the elderly and those with long-term care needs,” said Linda Briggle, administrator at CCEC. “We have goals to provide the best quality of care for our residents, the state surveys provide a measuring stick against their requirements as a standard for care. A deficiency-free survey is reinforcement that our goals are being met here at CCEC, and with the state surveyors.”

Unrelated to the state survey, CCEC has been selected to participate in a Regional (Region C) workgroup for the national Nursing Home Quality Initiative (NHQI). The project is supported by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and Ohio KePRO, Ohio’s Medicare quality improvement organization.

During the next two years, CCEC will join several other nursing homes in Ohio in quality improvement activities and interventions and will share best practices with other nursing homes throughout Ohio.

CCEC is the only nursing home facility in the United States with its primary mission to serve the needs of the Deaf, Deaf/Blind, and hard of hearing. Established in 1977 by the Ohio School for the Deaf Alumni Association, CCEC is a non-profit skilled nursing facility that caters to a regional hearing population.

“We have dedicated our staff to the highest level of quality of care for our residents,” Said Briggle. “That is what it is all about. And I firmly believe that the families of our residents respect our accomplishments, and our dedication to service.”

The NHQI focuses on 10 quality measures, selected by CMS, as significant indicators of a facility’s overall quality of care. Participating nursing homes in Ohio will focus on improvement in three areas of quality measure:

• Percentage of residents with pain

• Percentage of residents with pressure ulcers

• Use of physical restraints

“While we will focus on improving these three measures, our overall goal is to improve the quality of care in all Ohio nursing homes,” said Alice Stollenwerk Petrulis, M.D., Medical Director and NHQI spokesperson for Ohio KePRO. “We will support the workgroup participants by providing quality improvement tools and technical assistance.”

The new challenges that the long-term care industry faces in addition with the proposed state and federal budget cuts will make this undertaking much harder to achieve.

CMS provides information on these quality measures for every Medicare- and Medicaid-certified nursing home in the United States. This information is available on the Medicare Web site, www.medicare.gov (select Nursing Home Compare), and through its toll-free help line, 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227).