Thornapple Manor Executive Director of Don Haney updated the Barry County Board of Commissioners Tuesday on the facility and went over statistics from a Market Integration Report on the facility from auditing firm Plante Moran. The full report is available at www.barrycounty.org in the latest board packet.

 

But the big news came after the statistics.

 

Thornapple Manor has earned the right to be in a Spectrum Health network of high performing skilled nursing facilities. If a patient has a preference, it is always followed, Haney said, but if they don’t know, Spectrum “will give them a list of folks that do a great job within 50 miles of Grand Rapids,” that includes Thornapple Manor.

 

The nursing facilities in the 50 mile radius had to score 75 percent or higher on Spectrums criteria of quality indicators to be included on the list. “We scored high enough to be invited to participate in that high performing network,” he said, adding that he signed the affiliation agreement last week.

The program is not effective until Sept. 1, but Haney was given permission to tell the Barry County Commissioners ahead of the date.

 

The facility’s re-hospitalization rate is 23.4 percent, 6.7 percent below the expected rate of 30.16. “So we’re not even sending folks back to the hospital as they might expect us to. We’re either keeping them in the building or sending them home, which is a good thing for everybody.”

 

“We might have a higher cost per day to provide services, but we do a better job of getting our residents the care that they need and getting them recovered and then getting back into the community, thus our lower total cost of care.” The lower total cost also saves taxpayer’s money, he added.

 

To a question on room availability, he said as of today, they are 100 percent full.

“It does occur on occasion…we’re in a period right now when our refill is high and our building is completely full…yes, that happens, unfortunately.”