Merry Heart Nursing Home
200 Rt 10 West, Succasunna NJ 07876 · (973) 584-4000 · 85.3% estimated occupancy 1Updated: Aug 1, 2020 · By Sara Levinsohn
Merry Heart Nursing Home is a facility located in Succasunna, New Jersey, a city with a population of 10,619 people. With an overall rating of A+, this facility is without a doubt a top-shelf facility. In fact, we ranked this nursing home number 152 in the nation. This puts it in the top one percentile of all facilities. As you will find below, this facility performed just as well in our category grades. We gave it a straight A report card!
Additional Details:
Accepts Medicare 1 :
Accepts Medicaid 1 : 113 Beds
CCRC :
For profit - Partnership
Resident Council:
Family Council:
Medical Staff Hours Per Patient (2019)
Facility Inspections
On top of being an elite facility overall, this nursing home performed well in our inspections category, where it received an A+. Very few facilities performed this well in this category. Perhaps the most important factor we look at in calculating our inspection grades is deficiencies. Deficiencies are found on a facility's inspection reports. Nursing homes with higher scores in this area most likely dodged the more severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. Although this place had some deficiencies on its inspection report, none of them were serious based on CMS' scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.
Short-term Care Quality
This facility was given quality marks in the area of short-term care. For this reason, it received one of our best scores in that category with a grade of A+. Our short-term care grade is typically employed to measure a facility's performance with rehabilitation. In order to provide highly rated rehabilitation services, facilities generally must offer better levels of highly skilled nursing. These types of services include registered nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists and other licensed professionals. This nursing home provides more services with physical therapists and registered nurses than most nursing homes we looked at. This is usually a favorable sign. The final datapoint we assessed in this area is the number of patients who were able to return home from the facility. We found that it fared as well as just about any facility in New Jersey in this area with 69.4 percent of its residents returning home. With most nursing homes, fewer than half of their short-stay residents are able to return home.
Long-term Care Quality
We also awarded this facility a grade of of A+ for its long-term care grade. Long-term care scores of this caliber generally require both 24/7 care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine healthcare services. On top of considering the well above average volume of care provided by aids and other staff at this facility, we also were pleased by the facility's record for vaccinations. This facility gave the pneumonia vaccine to 100 percent of its patients, which is what we like to see. This combination proved to be successful as this facility was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. It had only 1.36 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days.
Nurse Quality
In our last category, this nursing home also received an A+ for its nursing score. This wrapped up a truly elite profile of four A+'s. Our nursing grade is largely based on a nursing home's nurse staffing. This particular nursing home provided 4.3 hours of nursing care per resident daily. This was one of the highest figures we found. In addition, a significant percentage of this care was provided by registered nurses, which are highly skilled nurses. These are both really impressive figures. On top of offering impressive levels of nursing care, this place was also above average in several of the major quality measures we assessed in this category. By way of illustration, it performed well when it comes to avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls. These are generally good measures of the quality of nursing care a nursing home provides.
Overall Rating Over Time
Compared to national and state averages across all facilities.
Merry Heart Nursing Home Quality Metrics
Minimizes Pressure Ulcers
This is the percentage of residents who have had a pressure ulcer. Pressure ulcers, which are also known as bed sores, are routinely the result of patients not being moved frequently enough. Better nursing protocols can limit the number of pressure ulcers sustained by residents in a nursing home.
Percent of Patients with Pressure Ulcers
Lower is Better
Minimizes Serious Falls
This datapoint is an indication of the percentage of long-term stay residents which have sustained falls which resulted in severe injury. This is one of the statistics we use in calculating nursing ratings.
Percent of Patients with Serious Falls
Lower is Better
Minimizes Urinary Tract Infections
This tells you the percentage of residents that have had a urinary tract infection. These infections are associated with poor hygiene.
Percent of Patients with UTIs
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Psychotic Medication
This indicates the percent of residents who were prescribed antipsychotic medications. Antipsychotic drugs are prescribed to patients for a variety of conditions, including dementia. Sadly, in some situations, increased usage of these drugs may indicate that a nursing home is using these drugs to subdue residents.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Anxiety Medication
This indicates the percent of patients who were prescribed antianxiety drugs. Antianxiety drugs are prescribed to residents experiencing anxiety or depression.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Managing Depression Among Residents
This is a measure of the percent of long-term residents who are demonstrating depressive symptoms.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriate Vaccine Usage
This is a measure of the percent of long-term stay residents who have received the flu and pneumonia vaccines. Respiratory viruses can be fatal for seniors, making these types of vaccines critical to patient care.
Percent of Patients
Higher is Better
Residents Maintain Autonomy
This metric is a measure of the percentage of long-term residents who required more assistance with activities of daily living over time. ADL's include activities such as dressing and taking a bath. Many would argue this is a measure of a patient's well-being.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Ability to Keep Residents Mobile
This metric is a measure of the percent of long-term residents that remained mobile levels.
Percentage of Residents
Higher is Better
Hospitalizations
This is the number of times residents are hospitalized per thousand days of care. There is usually a correlation between keeping patients out of the hospital and the overall quality of care.
Hospitalizations per 1,000 resident days
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Rehospitalizations
This metric tracks the number of times residents are rehospitalized per thousand days of short-term care.
Percentage of Residents Rehospitalized
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: ER Visits
This datapoint measures the number of emergency room visits per thousand days of short-term care. Staying out of the emergency room is one way to measure the well-being of patients during rehabilitation.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Facilitates Functional Improvement
Measures the percentage of short-term residents that saw functional improvements, such as enhanced ability to perform activities of daily living. Many would argue that this is a reliable measure of a facility's rehabilitation services.
Percentage of Resident
Higher is Better