Harmony at Hershey is an independent living facility with sections of assisted care and memory care. A family member was a resident of assisted care there for approximately one year before she passed away so I believe we have the knowledge and background to give an accurate rating. We became friends with some of the residents there and keep in touch with them. Please understand upfront that this is not a vindictive review. This review is being done to tell the truth with hopes that things might change because I truly believe this facility has great potential and I would very much like them to reach that potential for the welfare of the residents.
The good:
The location is fantastic and a great selling point. The building is new and has a very nice look inside and out which is another selling point. There were several phenomenal staff members there and as of this writing, only one is left.
The bad:
Included in the monthly fee is cleaning where someone is to come, once a week, to your living space to clean. Well, that happened less than a half a dozen times in a year because of staffing issues.
This facility goes through staff like crazy. There are always new faces coming in and for the most part, the staff that leave are always the good ones.
They are so shorthanded that sometimes they have non-trained staff members actually doing the cooking of the food. Often, the janitor.....yes...you read it correctly...the janitor cooks for the residents.
I personally have witnessed this.
The ugly:
We used to eat there often with my family member but stopped eating there because of rumors of food borne illnesses.
Unfortunately, my family member kept got several urinary tract infections while she was there of which one of them hospitalized her. She lived in the assisted care level. They were supposed to come in every 3-4 hours to check on her and change her if needed. She continued to get the urinary tract infections and we could not figure out why. We ended up putting in a Wi-Fi camera and found out the possible reason. Instead of coming in every few hours like they were supposed to, staff would sometimes not check on her for 12 to 14 hours, especially overnight. We complained and they blamed it on staffing issues and being shorthanded. One time at 5 AM, I checked the camera and found my family member on the floor and not moving. We rushed over there. She was OK when we found her but needed help getting back into bed. A review of the camera footage showed that nobody had been in there for over nine hours previous.
The residents have call buttons on them to press for assistance. It is quite normal for 2+ hour response times. We have personally witnessed this dozens of times.
Communication is horrible at best. When there is something that you, as a family member, should know about, basically you will find out well after the fact and sometimes too late. We met many times with the Nursing director and the administrator. They listened to our concerns and changes were promised but there was never any follow-through on anything as we had to keep bringing up the issues time after time.
Reliable information is that things have actually become worse there
Summary:
If you are thinking about having a loved with special medical needs live here, this is definitely not the place. If the potential resident is physically well and can live independently on their own, then this might be the place for you, however, I would stay away from the dining room. read more
