Most Syracuse Nursing Homes Given Poorest Rating by Government.

The government is trying to make choosing a nursing home easier. It recently came out with a new five star rating system, and it's giving most Syracuse nursing homes only one star, the lowest rating possible.

Growing old is not always easy, for Betty and William Dwight, it only got harder as their health became worse.
"I just pass out on the floor and I don't even know it" said Betty Dwight.
"They brought me in because I was so exhausted from taking care of her" said her husband of sixty three years, William Dwight.

They needed help and Rosewood Health Center was their only option.
"There was no other place. This was the only bed open" said William Dwight.

Many have an experience like the Dwights. For families that can choose a home for their loved one, Medicare is looking to make that decision easier. The government rates nursing homes from one to five stars.

Rosewood Heights Health Center is one of eight nursing homes in the Syracuse area and surrounding ten miles that received one star, the poorest rating. Thirteen nursing homes were rated in this area.
"What you'll find is that maybe with the exception of one or two, everybody is a one out of five stars," said Paul Scarpinato, Director or Rosewood Heights.

To determine the overall rating, surveyors look at three areas: health inspections, staffing, and quality measures. Scarpinato says since the nursing homes aren't equal on all levels, it's too hard to compare.
"You're going to find that you're not comparing apples to apples.
The size of the facility, the complexity of folks they take in, do play into the information that shows up in the quality measures as well as staffing."

Scarpinato also says there is more to choosing a nursing home than just looking at a star system.
"You need to go take a look a walk through, go see what's going on for yourself. Go look at the condition of the building, the rooms, see the interaction of the staff of the residents."

Bit it's not just one star facilities like Rosewood Heights that says families should look at more than just the five star quality ranking when choosing a nursing home. Tracy Engle is the director of Nottingham Nursing home, a five star facility. She say families have several things to consider when trying to choose the right nursing home.
"Look at the activities calendar, how many different activities do they have going on? Observe a meal."

Engle also says she doesn't always agree with how the star system ranks nursing homes. SHE
"Yes we are a five star facility, some of the other facilities, that didn't get five stars, I don't think it's an accurate representation of the care they provide."

Betty and William Dwight say overall, they are happy with the care they receive at Rosewood, but in their short time at the nursing home, they say there's been one big exception.
"We were all night without an aid or anybody. And we need to ring the bell usually to go to the John, because we need help," said Betty Dwight. William Dwight said that "from 11 o'clock to 8 o'clock this morning, nobody came."
"Yeah, we had to hold it or forget it," said Betty Dwight.

As for improving Rosewood Heights, Scarpinato says it's not the number of stars he's interested in. "I'm going to focus in on our day to day operations. The residents that we have, the systems that we have, the financial reimbursements that we have, and make the best shot at improving out health inspections and quality measures."

Scarpinato says he hopes Medicare's rating system evolves in the future, but until then he says families should trust their own judgement.