Alaris Health at St Mary's

In addition to faring well overall, this facility received an excellent inspection report. As a result, it received one of our best grades in this category with an A. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in determining our inspection grades. One critical factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of these deficiencies is arguably more meaningful than the number of deficiencies, as some can be relatively insignificant. While this place had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you that CMS did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This nursing home also received a impressive short-term care grade. This actually ended up being this nursing home's second most impressive category grade. In that area, we gave this facility a grade of A. In the area of short-term care, we seek to assess indicators of a nursing home's rehabilitation services. We analyze a nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as the ones performed by registered nurses and physical and occupational therapists. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last measure we assessed in this area is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We found that 6.3 percent of this facility's residents returned home.

Moving on our third area, we gave this nursing home a score of A- for our long-term care rating. This is a very strong rating. When facilities receive a grade in this range in this category it typically means it's well-staffed and is a quality place to reside on a permanent basis. One of the criteria we considered after nursing hours is vaccinations. This nursing home provided the pneumonia vaccination to 99.42748 percent of its residents. This is a proven method to minimize unnecessary deaths for the elderly population. Finally, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

The next area we assessed was nursing. This facility was given a very good nursing score in our assessment, with a grade of B-. Although this is not as good as several of its other grades, this is nevertheless an acceptable grade in this category. Our nursing score looks at the nursing home's nurse staffing levels. We weigh both the levels of skill of those nurses as well as the amount of time spent with residents. This facility provided just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a low total compared with most other nursing homes. Lastly, despite not having the highest total nursing hours, this place performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is often an indicator that a nursing home has quality controls in place.