Medicalodge celebrates having only one deficiency in 2015

Nevada Daily Mail

For the seventh straight year, the Department of Health and Senior Services found the Nevada Medicalodges to have less than seven deficiencies. The 2015 survey found one deficiency, causing celebration for staff.

"We had a bonus party and each staff member who met the criteria got a check," Susan Houser, administrator at the Medicalodges said. "A total of $15,000 was given out in checks so that was pretty significant money around the holidays for our staff. Our company does that for the facilities that do well on the survey."

This was the third consecutive year the Nevada Medicalodges threw a bonus party for the staff. Houser said as far as she knew, none of the more than 30 Medicaloges in Missouri, Oklahoma or Kansas have had seven years with less than seven tags on the survey.

Because the company gives bonuses to the staff, Houser said she wanted to give awards out to Ron Pence, the employee of the year, Denise Prine, the nurse of the year and Zack Lewis, dietary staff member of the year and others.

The survey found the hood above the dishwasher needed repainting as the only deficiency.

"We have not a resident care deficiency in years and years," Houser said. "We've never had more than three in the last few years. For us, it's doing things right everyday. The state may only be here for a week, but that's just a snap shot of what we do.

"When you're not doing things right, it'll show. People have the tendency to think that 'My shift doesn't matter because state doesn't check the night shift,' but if you don't do the right thing in night shift then it falls over to the day shift and on and on. So to have a good deficiency, it's a year round, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year issue to deal with." Houser said "What we say is, 'If you do it right, you won't have problems.' That's what we try and instill in our staff. We have good integrity, and we do everything right."

Houser said the staff she has is great at providing long-term care because of how much they cares about the patients.

"One of the differences between working in the hospital and working with long term care is that in the hospital, you may have a person you deal with for three or four days and then you never see them again. Here, when you take care of someone --we've had patients who have been here for more than 25 years -- they become part of your family. So it becomes very emotional to see them decline or we can really enjoy and applaud their successes," Houser said. "We see a lot of people who would die by themselves if it wasn't for the staff here. We see them holding their hands, praying, whatever they need in the moment to be done when they're dying. They really care. And that's what we are famous for, really caring."