Aberdeen Heights on U.S. News and World Report Best Nursing Home lists

Aberdeen Heights is on the U.S. News and World Report Best Nursing Homes 2019 short-term rehabilitation and long-term care lists. The senior living community’s The Glen health care center received the highest score of High Performing to make the lists, available here.

The U.S. News and World Report list uses information from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the government agency that sets and enforces standards for nursing homes. CMS assigns one to five stars to each community for how well it performs in health inspections, nurse staffing and level of quality care.

U.S. News and World Report now uses the CMS star rating for staffing rather than the overall star rating to determine which communities are given the High Performing designation. This decision reflects expert opinion on the importance of staffing in quality of care, as well as the availability since April 2018 of more accurate data on nurse staffing levels in each community or center.

More than 3,100 nursing homes received CMS' top rating of five stars, while just 1,139 nursing homes earned the top Overall rating for long-term care issued by U.S. News, according to the U.S. News website.

New in 2018 was a Short-Stay Rehabilitation rating evaluating the care delivered to patients after a hospitalization for surgery, heart attack, stroke or similar condition. To be eligible for a short-stay rating, a center's performance on at least one outcome measure and data on either physical therapy time or RN and total nurse staffing must have been available from CMS. Outcome measures included the percentages of short-stay patients who were rehospitalized within 30 days, had an emergency room visit within 30 days and were successfully discharged to their home or community.

Aberdeen Heights is making its first appearance on the short-term rehabilitation list, and it’s sixth appearance on the long-term care list since 2011. Aberdeen Heights is a community in the PMMA (Presbyterian Manors of Mid-America) system.

“Our employees continue to focus their efforts on delivering quality care every day,” said PMMA President and CEO Bruce Shogren. “The High Performing designation confirms their good work.”

In addition to Aberdeen Heights, five PMMA locations are on the honoree list with the High Performing designation for long-term care: Aberdeen Village (Olathe), Emporia, Lawrence and Wichita in Kansas and Rolla in Missouri. Communities recognized on the short-stay rehab list in addition to Aberdeen Heights are Manor of the Plains (Dodge City), Parsons, Topeka and Wichita in Kansas. Wichita and Aberdeen Heights were among 420 communities that received the high performing designation in both categories.

All Medicare- and Medicaid-certified health care centers were evaluated by U.S. News. To be eligible for an overall rating, a center must have received reimbursement from CMS in July 2019 and had sufficient data to evaluate quality in that rating.

To learn more about the U.S. News and World Report rating system, visit their FAQ page.