Rehabilitation Center gains national top 10 percent award

BY JOHN L. GUERRA

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

The Key West Health and Rehabilitation Center—the nursing home/long-term care facility on College Road—is still holding strong with the federal agency that inspects and oversees the operation.

KWHR, which replaced the nursing home that was forced to close after Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration labeled it a threat to residents’ safety, continues to get high marks for patient care and administration, CMS reports.

The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services’ (CMS) Quality Improvement Organization placed the facility in the top 10 percent of skilled nursing centers in the nation for 2014. The award goes to facilities that successfully meet improvement goals over the past year, said Susan DeFresne, KWHR’s top administrator. KWHR has 68 long-term residents and 18 short-term residents, which put it closer to full occupancy, which is 120 patients total.

“We had four low-level issues that we fixed pretty quickly,” DeFresne told Konk Life. “It’s a great program that forces facilities to continually monitor and improve the quality of care for patients and residents.”

The skilled nursing centers are graded on several fronts such as staffing, quality of care, as well as fire safety, food, activities for residents and so on. Points are given for shortcomings and those with the lowest scores score better than those with higher scores.

“KWHR’s composite score was well below the national average and our staff received a personal phone call from a member of Quality Improvement Organization, thanking them.” DeFresne said.

DeFresne said supervisors and staff try to solve problems as they pop up; in facilities with sick and elderly residents it’s vital to fix issues before they get out of control, she said.

“We set goals and put plans in place to improve quality of care and quality of life for our short-term patients and long-term residents,” she said. “We audit and audit until we reach those goals.”

MedicareWire.com, which is not allied with the federal agency, tracks patient complaints at the nation’s nursing homes and long-term care facilities. According to the site, the Key West facility had several complaints in 2012 but has steadily improved.

For instance, in 2012 inspectors faulted the center for failing to properly secure and manage money that residents deposit for their use; had complaints about the food; and were hit with deficiencies for failing to store food properly.

Then, in September 2013, AHCA found no deficiencies at the facility during its annual health inspection, an extremely rare event, AHCA officials said. DeFresne and her staff were ecstatic.

“The first health inspection in 2011 had 13 deficiencies; the 2012 inspection had 11 deficiencies, and ours had zero deficiencies,” DeFresne said.

Residents and patients at the rehabilitation center, by the way, will be celebrating Halloween and Fantasy Fest Week, albeit in a more reserved manner than everyone else.

Donna Nelson, owner of Fantasy Costumes at 3302 N. Roosevelt Blvd, is donating $1,000 in Halloween costumes, makeup and other items for the rehabilitation center’s Monster Mash party, DeFresne said. The party is Oct. 28 at 6:30 p.m.

“We’d like to thank Donna Nelson for making our Monster Mash party a fun and successful event,” said Terry Budaj, KWHR’s activities director.

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