Alaris Health at Belgrove

We also wanted to emphasize the fact that this facility received an impressive grade of A in our short-term care category. In determining our short-term care ratings, we assess the facility's levels of highly skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists respiratory therapists and other highly skilled individuals. This score is frequently a reliable assessment of the facility's ability to rehabilitate patients. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Lastly, we considered the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 5.5 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

In addition, this facility also earned a nearly flawless government inspection report. As a result, it received one of our best grades in that category with an A. Arguably the most significant factor we look at in computing our inspection grades is deficiencies. Deficiencies can be found on a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes with higher scores in this category typically dodged the more severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Even some of the best nursing homes receive an occasional ding on their inspection report.

This nursing home also received a strong nursing score. In fact, we awarded it an above average grade of B+ in this area. When calculating a facility's nursing score, we look at the amount of time nurses are with patients and the levels of training of those nurses. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics and this nursing home excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any facility the country in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as by having a policy of turning residents more often.

The final area we scored is long-term care. This nursing home was awarded a very good long-term care rating this year, with a grade of C. Although this isn't nearly as elite as some of its other scores, this is nevertheless an acceptable grade for this area. In the area of long-term care, we focus on the amount of care offered by a nursing home, as opposed to more sophisticated services. After assessing the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination data. This facility vaccinated 92.85714 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which happens to be slightly below what we were hoping for but still a decent percentage. Nevertheless, this place was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.