Alden of Waterford

On top of performing well in its overall grade, this facility performed at an even higher level in the area of inspections. In fact, it received a nearly flawless inspection report this year. As a result, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A. Inspection scores take several factors into consideration, including deficiencies and substantiated complaints. You can learn more about each of these items by reviewing copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. Fortunately, although this place had a few minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones labeled as categories G through L. This tells you the government inspectors didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Remember that deficiency-free inspection reports are uncommon in this industry.

Among this nursing home's other accomplishments is its dominant short-term care score. We awarded them one of our most favorable scores in that category, with a score of A-. In determining our short-term care grades, we analyze the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The purpose is to formulate a measure for comparing the rehabilitation services of various nursing homes. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not all facilities employs these types of nurses. However, based on the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we considered the percentage of patients who ultimately returned home from this facility. We found that 5.4 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home.

This nursing home also received a strong nursing score. In fact, we awarded it an above average grade of B in this area. Our nursing rating assesses the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. We look at both the levels of licensure of those nurses and the quantity of hours spent with residents. This particular nursing home provided 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics and this facility excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place the nation in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by having a protocol of moving a patient at least once a day.

This nursing home's weakest area is long-term care, which is the final category we looked at. For this area, we gave this nursing home an D. Facilities that do not fare well in long-term care typically aren't as well-staffed and are lagging in some of the areas of routine healthcare services we looked at. On top of considering the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 88.20225 percent of its residents. This is many points below average. To our surprise, this nursing home was actually able to limit hospitalizations. With just 0.06 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this nursing home has fewer hospitalizations than many nursing homes. This is its best feature in this category.