CROWN POINT | State and local health care officials question a recent survey by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services that rated more than half of the nursing homes in the Calumet Region as below average.

Meanwhile, three region nursing homes, including Wittenberg Lutheran Village in Crown Point, rated four stars, or above average. None rated five stars on a five-star rating scale in Lake, Porter, Jasper and Newton counties in Indiana and portions of Will County in the region.

"Premature and problematic," is the way Beecher Hunter, president of Life Care Center of Valparaiso, described the ranking. Hunter's 110-bed facility received three out of five possible stars for an average rating.

"It is based on a flawed survey system that does not measure quality...and includes inaccurate information," Hunter said.

CMS, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, released quality ratings for each of the nation's 15,800 nursing homes last month on its Web site, www.medicare.gov. It gave 12 percent of the nation's nursing homes five-star top billing and placed 22 percent at the low end.

Some 27 of 50 facilities in Lake, Porter, Jasper and Newton counties in Indiana and Will County in Illinois received an overall rating of one star, or much below average; 12 received two stars, or below average; and seven rated three stars, or average.

"We are very proud," said Kelly Besaw, health facility administrator for Wittenberg, whose Crown Point facility received four stars. "We view ourselves as five star and won't be satisfied until we attaint that."

The rating is a dramatic turnaround for the facility, which was under state scrutiny a decade ago for poor service complaints. Besaw, a seven-year veteran of Wittenberg, said, "We have built a staff that is a professional team. Customer service is huge."

She said Wittenberg has 249 employees to care for 233 residents.

Bill Triplett, administrator for Oak Grove Christian Retirement Village in Demotte, said "We probably have the best staffing ratio around. We stress quality resident care and the outcomes of the care we give. Its possible we have a bed sore in the building, but it is probably because they came in that way."

Triplett's facility also earned four stars, as did the St. James Manor and Villa, of Crete.

Stephen Smith, president of the Indiana Health Care Association representing nearly 300 nursing homes and other long-term care providers in the state, said that while the survey unfairly discredits many good facilities, Indiana has a critical problem with nursing home staff turnover that must be addressed by health care providers with help from the Legislature.

"The strongest predictor of quality is the retention of the staff," Smith said. "Your caregiver is your lifeline..."