Belleville Medical Facility Earns Top Nursing Home Rating

BELLEVILLE, NJ — The Transitional Care Unit (TCU) at Clara Maass Medical Center, a facility of RWJBarnabas Health is among the 13 percent of U.S. skilled nursing facilities that have been recognized as a best nursing home for 2021-2022 by U.S. News & World Report.

As nursing homes and facilities across the country continue to grapple with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, U.S. News remains at the forefront of providing data-driven information and guidance to help residents, families and caregivers understand their long-term and short-term care options.

The TCU, a 20-bed unit at the medical center that offers a subacute level of care within the acute care hospital, earned "best nursing homes" status by achieving a rating of “High Performing,” the highest possible rating. U.S. News gives the designation of best nursing home only to those homes that satisfy U.S. News’s assessment of the appropriate use of key services and consistent performance in quality measures.

“The Transitional Care Unit at Clara Maass Medical Center is a very special and caring environment in which patients can recover from a host of medical issues from oncology and pain management to post-surgical recovery to skin and wound care, and it is an honor to know that our efforts to create a safe, comfortable healing environment has earned national recognition this year,” said Mary Ellen Clyne, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Clara Maass Medical Center.

“Our entire team has worked effortlessly, driven by our commitment to excellence and we are proud to be rated among the best nursing homes in the entire country,” said John V. Kelly, Jr., MD, Medical Director of the Transitional Care Unit.

Now in its 12th year, the U.S. News Best Nursing Homes ratings and profiles offer comprehensive information about quality of care, COVID-19 vaccination requirements for residents and staff, flu and pneumonia vaccination rates, and infection control violations listed on the resident safety summary. Individuals can easily conduct customized research for a highly rated nursing home by location, size and Medicare and Medicaid coverage.

This year's methodology includes an emphasis on homes meeting certain standards of patient safety, which could limit a home’s ability to achieve a ‘High-Performing’ rating. These standards include a minimum threshold for the staff COVID-19 vaccination rate, overuse of antipsychotic drugs and frequent visits to the emergency department, among other criteria. Homes that have below a 75 percent COVID-19 staff vaccination rate are not considered a leading facility. A significant percentage of Short-Term Rehabilitation and Long-Term Care programs that would otherwise have qualified as 'High-Performing' were downgraded at the time of publication.

The ratings include data on staffing, success in preventing ER visits and pneumonia vaccination rates, among other metrics. Out of 13,175 nursing homes that received a Long-Term Care Rating, 1,063 were designated as High-Performing. The Short-Term Care Rating incorporates measures of quality including consistency of registered nurse staffing, use of antipsychotic drugs and success in preventing falls. For 2021-22, 13,500 facilities received a Short-Term Rating, while only 1,651 homes earned a High-Performing Rating.