Alden of Waterford

This nursing home received a strong overall grade as described above, but we especially would like to point out its excellent health inspections in recent years. We awarded it an impressive grade of A in this category. Our inspection grades weigh several factors found on a nursing home's inspection report. One key criteria we rely on is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with better grades in this category usually have very few severe deficiencies. Although this nursing home had some deficiencies on its report, none of them were severe based on CMS' scale. We should point out that deficiency-free inspections are rare in this industry.

This nursing home is also strong in the category of short-term care, where it was awarded a grade of B+. It outperformed most nursing homes in this category. Short-term care ratings are important for people needing rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically mandates additional highly-skilled nursing services. This includes a wide scope of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final datapoint we assessed in this area is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We found that 5.1 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home.

Another one of this facility's impressive category grades came in the area of nursing care. We awarded them one of our better scores in that area, with a grade of B+. In calculating a nursing home's nursing grade, we look at the number of hours nurses spend with patients as well as the level of licensure of those nurses. This nursing home averages 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This nursing home performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a facility has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can often be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

Moving on to our last area, this facility was given an excellent long-term care rating. This facility did not prove to have any weak grades. For residents seeking a permanent residence as opposed to rehabilitation, long-term care is an important category. One of the criteria we considered on top of nurse's aid hours is vaccines. This facility administered the pneumonia vaccine to 83.10811 percent of its patients. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.04 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.