Cherry Hill Nursing Home Receives Lowest Rating From U.S. News

CHERRY HILL, NJ — Silver Healthcare Center in Cherry Hill received the lowest rating in a recently released U.S. News & World Report publication that evaluated nursing homes across the country.

Homes were given an overall rating, a rating for short-term rehabilitation care and a new rating this year that evaluates long-term care. Silver Healthcare received a grade of 2, and was classified as average for short-term rehabilitation and below average for long-term care.

"This year, we introduced a long-term care rating," Zach Adams, a senior health data analyst at U.S. News, told Patch. "This is for people who need ongoing daily assistance in stuff like health-related and personal care."

In the U.S. News report, the overall ratings for nursing homes in 2019-20 are based exclusively on the short-term and long-term care ratings, Adams said.

A strong emphasis was placed on staffing in methodology to compile the "U.S. News Best Nursing Home" ranking for 2019-20. Adams said staffing levels are strongly associated with quality and safety.

For short-term care, Silver Healthcare averaged 40 minutes for availability of registered nursing staff per resident per day. It is below both the state average of 50 minutes and the national average of 41 minutes. The higher the number the better.

It scored 100 percent for consistent nursing staff, but its physical therapy staff is only available an average of 4 minutes per resident per day. The state average is 8 minutes, and the national average is 5 minutes.

For long-term care, Silver Healthcare scored 100 for consistent nursing staff, but nurse staffing checked in at three hours, 31 minutes per resident per day. This is below both the state average of three hours, 48 minutes and the national average of three hours, 51 minutes.

"We think everyone deserves to get the right amount of time and attention," Adams said, explaining that the publication measured the percentage of days a nursing home met the federal standards for registered nurse staffing.

In addition to having sufficient staff overall, the publication wanted to make sure nursing homes are still meeting some threshold on their less well-staffed days.

Patient outcomes — both positive and negative — are also a key part of the methodology. Silver Healthcare received a higher number of complaints than expected for both short-term and long-term care. To view the full rating for Silver Healthcare, visit health.usnews.com.

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