South Nassau Communities Hospital’s Transitional Care Unit is the first and only unit of its kind on Long Island to receive the highest possible Overall Quality rating of five stars from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services “Nursing Home Compare” ratings service.
The 20-bed unit within the hospital provides rehabilitative care, including physical and occupational therapy combined with specialized medical and nursing care. The unit’s goal is to speed a patient’s transition from hospital to home.
The Overall Quality rating is based on health inspections, quality measures, and staffing. The CMS website, www.medicare.gov, provides ratings of healthcare providers and services so that individuals, family members, and caregivers can identify and compare the quality of providers and services.
“We are delighted that the federal government has now recognized what our patients and staff have known for some time–South Nassau’s transitional care unit is among the very best on Long Island and in the country,” said Richard J. Murphy, South Nassau’s president and CEO. “This rating validates our effort to be the very best in all we do when it comes to quality.”
“I congratulate the TCU staff for their dedication to our patients and to the high standards they have set for themselves. Achieving a 5-star rating is a major accomplishment,” Murphy added.
According to CMS, the 5-star rating means that South Nassau’s TCU is ranked among the top 10 percent nationwide. Data showed that the unit surpassed the national average benchmark on 5 of 5 quality and safety measures.
Opened November 10, 2014, South Nassau’s 20-bed Transitional Care Unit provides short-term care for patients whose acute diagnosis has been stabilized but who are not yet well enough to be discharged to their home, a subacute rehab facility, or a nursing home. While the length of stay in the TCU is a minimum of 5 to a maximum of 21 days, the care it provides, including specialized medical and nursing care with rehabilitation services, facilitates patients’ recovery so that after they are discharged they are prepared to achieve a seamless transition back to their prior living arrangements.
The TCU’s guiding therapeutic and rehabilitative principle is that the patient’s active participation in rehabilitative therapies can accelerate the transition from hospital to home. The unit’s patient-care team of physicians, physical and occupational therapists, nurses, social workers, nutritionists, and aides assess each patient to develop a patient-centered plan of care to ensure prompt healing and recovery.
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Designated a Magnet hospital by the American Nurses Credentialing Center, South Nassau Communities Hospital is one of the region’s largest hospitals, with 455 beds, more than 900 physicians, and 3,000 employees. Located in Oceanside, the hospital is an acute-care not-for-profit teaching hospital that provides state-of-the-art care in cardiac, oncologic, orthopedic, bariatric, pain management, mental health, and emergency services.
In addition to its extensive outpatient specialty centers, South Nassau provides emergency and elective angioplasty, and it is the only hospital on Long Island with the Novalis Tx and Gamma Knife radiosurgery technologies.
South Nassau is designated as a stroke center by the New York State Department of Health and a comprehensive community cancer center by the American College of Surgeons. It is also an accredited center of the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Association and Quality Improvement Program.
In addition, the hospital has been awarded the Joint Commission’s gold seal of approval as a top performer on key quality measures, including heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia, and surgical care, as well as disease-specific care for hip and joint replacement, wound care, and end-stage renal disease.
For more information, visit www.southnassau.org.
