Of the nearly 16,000 nursing homes in the nation, only 173 are rated as “America’s Best,” by U.S. News & World Report based on rankings by a federal agency. Within that distinguished tier is Clearwater, the skilled nursing facility at Kendal on the Hudson, in Sleepy Hollow. The criteria and rankings are established by Nursing Home Compare, a program operated by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The standards that gave the Kendal facility its five-star rating are determined by health inspections, nurse staffing and measures of quality care. The various measurements used include average time spent per patient by nurses, food safety, hiring practices, infection control and other factors involved in operating a nursing home. State inspectors must visit nursing homes at least once every 12 to 15 months to determine compliance with the standards set by Medicare and Medicaid, as well as state requirements.

Karen Harvatin, Health Services Administrator, attributes part of the reason for the facility’s successful rating to staffing.

“I think one of the things that sets Kendal apart is our low (staff) turnover,” she said. “Everything that happens at Kendal is driven by certain core values,” she said, adding “those individuals who are attracted to work at Kendal have the same values. Also it is how they are treated; it’s a good place to work.”

“It is also the oversight we have in place,” Harvatin said, explaining Kendal doesn’t do its own inspections or surveys. “We have a compliance officer who comes in quarterly for audits and the state Health Department comes in minimally once a year to do a survey. We are providing quality services 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

She emphasized the staff is responsible for offering ideas for “daily quality improvement.”

“It’s not just a matter of myself or another director sitting behind a desk and deciding what we should be doing,” she asserted. “It is bringing the staff together and identifying what processes may not be working and taking their suggestions for improving our quality of care.”

By comparison with other nursing homes in New York and nationally, Kendal has a considerably lower than average of what are labeled as “deficiencies” discovered during standard inspections and compliant investigations. During a 15-month period lasting through last October, one such deficiency was found there as compared with an average of seven in nursing homes in New York state and 10 found in such homes nationally.

“One major, additional component of why we are so successful is our partnership with Phelps Hospital,” Patricia Doyle, Executive Director of Kendal on Hudson, emphasized. “The hospital is 50 yards up the driveway. Our medical director is assistant medical director at Phelps. Most of our residents choose Phelps as their hospital. If a resident does have an emergency, they are quickly guided into Phelps. We have an outstanding dialogue between us, the hospital and the physicians.”

Doyle noted that generally half of the residents in the 42-bed skilled nursing home are residents at Kendal, “to whom we are committed first,” but that the other half “are from outside.” She added Havastin was in the “midst of developing a homecare program right here on our campus.”

Havistan said an accredited homecare service director is filing an application with the state Department of Health that would allow Kendal to provide homecare services for its resident community. She said that a future possibility would be a feasibility study to see if such a service would be beneficial to the greater community outside Kendal.

This May, Kendal on Hudson will be celebrating its fifth year as a continuing care retirement community in Sleepy Hollow.