The staff at Heritage Hall Lexington celebrated recently after the facility received a five-star quality rating from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the highest rating available under the agency’s nursing home evaluation system.
Administrator Ron Adams said the CMS rating system evaluates nursing homes nationwide using several categories, including health inspections, staffing and quality measures.
“We’re the only five-star facility in the Lexington area,” Adams said.
According to Adams, Heritage Hall received above-average ratings in health inspections, while its staffing rating was listed as average. He said he was especially proud of the facility’s five-star marks in both long-stay and short-stay resident quality measures.
“For the long-stay, it’s our long-term care people, people that have been here for years,” Adams said. “That means we have fewer UTIs; we have fewer skin breakdown issues; we have less weight loss, things like that. That’s what we’re always shooting for, is the five-star in our quality for our residents.”
Adams said the facility had previously held a fivestar quality rating before falling just short after CMS recalculated one of its measures. He said staff has been working hard to regain the top distinction.
“This was just kind of a celebration to the staff saying you all did an amazing job,” he said.
Adams also credited the facility’s employees and resident care culture for the achievement.
“The number of people that you have doesn’t necessarily equate to great quality measures,” he said. “The quality of people that you have is what does it.”
He added that Heritage Hall regularly receives positive feedback from residents’ families through an anonymous QR-code-based survey system.
“We overwhelmingly have families that just say wonderful things about us,” Adams said. “So I’m very proud of our building. I’m very proud of our staff. We have great residents. We have great families. This is just a really good time for us.”
