EBENSBURG -The next owner of Laurel Crest Rehabilitation & Special Care Center says its goal of taking over the home Jan. 1 is on schedule - and the company has high hopes about the future there.
For Grane Healthcare, it includes taking "a close look" at the Cambria County nursing home facility itself and what changes might be needed in the years to come, company spokesman Mark Fox said.
"We're looking tersely at the demographics there to determine the long-term direction of the campus," he said Thursday, noting the company is talking with several contractors. "Laurel Crest itself is in good condition overall but we're looking at the facility carefully and [space utilization] carefully.
"We think there may be some elderly services that can be brought to the community at Laurel Crest that will excite the community," said Fox, adding it was too soon to elaborate. "I think it could be some things that aren't currently in this market."
The company, purchasing the home from Cambria County for $14.2 million, is expected to close the sale Dec. 31, a deadline county officials are aiming for to get the home's budget off the county books by the new fiscal year.
Grane is no stranger to Laurel Crest, having been a onetime manager at the home who partnered with the Conemaugh Health System in 2003 in a failed $6 million bid to buy Laurel Crest.
The Pittsburgh-based company currently owns 11 nursing homes in Pennsylvania - most of them in central and western Pennsylvania. Among the properties are the 120-bed Altoona Center for Nursing Care and LaurelWood Care Center in suburban Johnstown, as well as assisted living centers on both of those campuses.
With Laurel Crest, Grane officials said efforts continue to get nursing home staff through the pre-employment process.
Aside from that, "it's pretty much business as usual at the home itself," Laurel Crest Administrator Deb Nesbella said. "Grane has done a great job making themselves available for employees during the transition ... but otherwise, we've all been working to make this transition as seamless as possible for the residents and the staff."
Grane's search for an administrative team also remains under way, Fox said, as well as discussions with current leaseholders within the sprawling nursing home campus, which contains a dialysis clinic, a therapy unit and other departments.
"Things are going fine we have people up there processing everything and making sure contracts are in order," he said. "Otherwise, there's not much to say right now."
The county moved to sell Laurel Crest late this spring after several years of continued losses at the home, including $8 million combined from 2007 and 2008.
The county cut costs and laid off dozens at the home heading into this year, but losses continued as the home's census remained in the 220s despite space for 370 residents.
In an industry recognized as one of the nation's most regulated, state inspections yielded dozens of deficiencies at Laurel Crest in recent years, resulting in serious fines and penalties.
In 2007, lingering deficiencies - some stemming from injuries to residents - prompted funding cutoffs at the facility and the home was twice put on a provisional license.
Department of Health inspection reports show Grane's local nursing homes have fared well in recent inspections.
The Altoona Center, for example, was visited five times by state inspectors through late September and six times in 2008 - with most resulting in no deficiencies.
Deficiencies were found on four occasions but were classified as "minor" with "no actual harm" caused to residents.
At LaurelWood near Johnstown, inspections in 2008 and 2009 yielded similar results. The facility received six visits in 2009, with three yielding minor, no harm deficiencies, according to inspection reports.
In 2008, LaurelWood was inspected 11 times with seven yielding no issues. Findings during the other four visits were also classified as minor by the state health department.
County officials have said an ownership change was needed at Laurel Crest for the home to survive, indicating some of the hard-line, "culture changes" they've tried to make there over the years can be better carried out by a private owner.
State and federal reimbursement rate changes have also made it difficult for county homes to survive.
Combined with the rising operating costs that homes face, that will likely push many other county homes to privatize in the years so come, Grane President Ross Nese said in an interview last month.
As of this fall, 33 of 67 counties still owned nursing homes, down from 41 in the mid-1990s. Blair County - with its 254-bed Valley View Nursing Home - is among them.
Currently, both Cambria and Lackawanna counties are planning to unload their homes Dec. 31.
"I think there's going to be a lot of this in the coming years. Governments got into this for all the right reasons, but this is a business now, and there are other alternatives to operating a home," Nese said. "You really have to have expertise - not to mention the financial resources - to deliver this service today."
Mirror Staff Writer David Hurst is at 946-7457.
