The Berkshire Eagle reports that the New Boston Nursing Home facility in western Massachusetts was sold for $525,000 (or about $9,500 per bed). The new owners renamed the facility Berkshire Rehabilitation and Skilled Care Center and plan to invest $500,000 in upgrades. Here is the full text of the article:

Elder care home sold
By Ellen G. Lahr, Berkshire Eagle Staff

Sunday, February 25
SANDISFIELD — Sheehan Health Group, whose co-owner has an interest in seven other elder care facilities in the Berkshires and outside Boston, has purchased the former New Boston Nursing Home, a 55-bed care facility.
Patrick Sheehan and his business partner Karen Clay, a nurse administrator, bought the New Boston business Jan. 1 for $525,000 from Apple Health Care, which had owned the nursing home since 1976.

They plan to invest about a $500,000 in improvements, beginning in March, Sheehan said this week.

Sheehan is a partner in the Craneville Place nursing care facility and in Sugar Hill Senior Living development, both in Dalton.

He and Clay have renamed the New Boston facility the Berkshire Rehabilitation and Skilled Care Center.

Goal of full occupancy

During the past year, Sheehan said that, through marketing and other efforts, he worked with the previous owner to increase the patient census from a low of 32 to 46 patients. He said he is optimistic that the place will be at full occupancy by the end of March.

The result will be more hiring, he said.

That goal will require a facilities improvement, more staffing and hands-on operation, which Sheehan said Clay intend to oversee.
Sheehan is a proponent of owner-operator nursing facilities. He bought the beleaguered former Optimum Care Center in Dalton in the late 1990s, and it became a top performing skilled nursing home, he said.

The state Department of Public Health gave the Berkshire Rehabilitation and Skilled Care Center a rating of 122 in a routine facility survey in November.

The state average score is 122, with a maximum possible score of 132.

Craneville Place has a rating of 124.

Sheehan said the Sandisfield nursing facility was among 27 owned by the Apple Health Group in Avon, Conn.; it was the only facility in the chain located in Massachusetts.

“It didn’t fit with what they wanted to do anymore,” Sheehan said.

Owner-operator philosophy

He said the owner-operator philosophy creates a higher quality facility than does the absentee-owner model, which is common in an increasingly corporate elder nursing care industry.

“We run all our nursing homes with the owner-operator approach,” he said. “We’re evaluating this operation and making improvements where indicated, with the physical plant, staffing and whatever is indicated.

“We tend to operate with higher staff levels than necessary by industry norms.”

Besides seven nursing homes and one assisted-living facility, Sheehan has interests in a hospice care company and a consulting company, Clay and Associates.

The publication Consumer Reports maintains a useful site with information on nursing home selection. They also maintain a state-by-state report nursing homes to avoid and nursing homes to consider using their own Nursing Home Quality Monitor. The main site can be found here and the Massachusetts listings can be found here.

More information on Consumer Report’s ranking criteria is available here, and the following is a list of the Massachusetts Nursing Homes to avoid that were on Consumer Report’s August 2006 list:

ANN CARROLL NURSING HOME
66 JOHNSON ST
LYNN, MA 01902

CEDAR HILL HEALTH CARE CENTER
49 THOMAS PATTEN DRIVE
RANDOLPH, MA 02368

CHAPIN CENTER
200 KENDALL STREET
SPRINGFIELD, MA 01104

COHASSET KNOLL SKILLED NURSING & REHAB FACILITY
1 CHIEF JUSTICE CUSHING HIGHWAY
COHASSET, MA 02025

COLONY HOUSE NURSING & REHABILITATION CENTER
277 WASHINGTON STREET
ABINGTON, MA 02351

HOLYOKE REHABILITATION CENTER
60 EASTHAMPTON ROAD
HOLYOKE, MA 01040

KENOZA MANOR CONVALESCENT HOME
190 NORTH AVENUE
HAVERHILL, MA 01830

LOOMIS HOUSE NURSING CENTER
298 JARVIS AVENUE
HOLYOKE, MA 01040

MOUNT SAINT VINCENT NURSING HOME
35 HOLY FAMILY ROAD
HOLYOKE, MA 01040

PIETY CORNER NURSING HOME
325 BACON STREET
WALTHAM, MA 02154

PROVIDENT SKILLED NURSING CENTER
1501 COMMONWEALTH AVENUE
BRIGHTON, MA 02135

SUNBRIDGE CARE & REHAB-BROADWAY
281 BROADWAY
METHUEN, MA 01844

SUNBRIDGE CARE CENTER-GLENWOOD
557 VARNUM AVENUE
LOWELL, MA 01854