The care you need in a convenient location
Oftentimes, what tops our lists of possible retirement locations are the fun factors: proximity to shopping, entertainment, parks, and fine dining. And they should be – your retirement years are a time to celebrate everything you love! But along with these diversions should be an important, if less fun, consideration: access to health care.
Bergen County health care, like all quality health care, is not a one-size-fits-all service. Every person has unique needs when it comes to health care – this is especially true for older adults who are approaching retirement. When choosing a health-care team, it is smart to look for providers and hospitals that have the most experience with older adults and the chronic conditions that often come with age. The distance one must travel to the doctor and closest hospital is also important, particularly for those with chronic challenges that require frequent treatment or doctor visits. After all, the less time you spend getting to the doctor’s office means the more time you have to do all the fun things you want to do.
Assessing the quality of health care
Bergen County health-care providers should perform well on all measures of quality. Medicare makes this simple: it offers a Hospital Compare tool that allows searchers to compare hospitals based on a star rating.
Health-care providers take a number of measures to earn a high rating, such as having board-certified physicians on staff, a high ratio of health-care professionals to patients, and the use of electronic medical records and medication order systems to streamline visits. Effective health-care providers emphasize preventive care services, such as colon cancer screenings and immunizations, blood sugar tests, and other monitoring services. Quality health-care providers deliver optimal outcomes for medical care and surgical procedures, with low rates of complications and healthcare-acquired infections.
Health care is high quality if it is:
- Safe: the care provided does not harm the patient
- Effective: the health-care provider provides services based on scientific knowledge to all who could benefit, and avoids unnecessary services
- Patient-centered: care that is respectful and responsive to each patient’s preferences, needs, and values
- Timely: reducing wait times and thereby avoiding potentially harmful delays in care
- Efficient: practices that avoid wasting equipment, supplies, money, time, ideas, and energy
- Equitable: care that remains consistent despite differences in personal characteristics, such as the gender or ethnicity of the health-care providers or patients, geographic location, and socioeconomic status of the patient
How health care in New Jersey stacks up
Health care in New Jersey is among the best in the nation. U.S. News & World Report ranks New Jersey health care as sixth in the country. Drilling down to subcategories, the news organization ranked New Jersey as sixth in the nation when it comes to access to health care, 19th in health-care quality, and third in public health. These impressive rankings mean that people have access to their favorite New Jersey hospitals, receive good care from their health-care professionals, and have low rates of obesity, smoking, suicide, mental health issues, and mortality.
New Jersey hospitals rival some of the best health-care facilities in the nation, including New York City hospitals. While there are more hospitals in New York City – 62 acute care facilities in all – the quality of care in New Jersey hospitals is often much higher.
The Vista
Discover why The Vista, the newest Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) in northern New Jersey, should be at the top of your places to consider for living your best life in your retirement years. The Vista provides priority access to the on-campus health-care services of Christian Health (CH). Complete our online information request form, and we’ll reach out to you with information you need as you make your decision.