Altercare of Nobles Pond

On top of receiving a strong overall score, this nursing home also received an elite short-term care grade. We awarded them one of our higher scores in that area, with a grade of A-. In computing these short-term care scores, we assess the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, speech therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The purpose is to formulate a barometer for comparing the rehabilitation services of different facilities. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not all facilities employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final metric we assessed in this category is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We found that 6.3 percent of this nursing home's patients were able to return home.

In addition, this nursing home also excelled in inspections, where it received an B+. Few nursing homes performed as well in this area. Our inspection ratings weigh several factors found on a nursing home's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we look at is the number and severity of deficiencies. Places with better grades in this area typically have few of these severe deficiencies. This facility was hit with 2 deficiencies on its inspection report, but fortunately none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe. This means that the government inspectors didn't consider any of these deficiencies to be an imminent threat to patient health or safety. We should point out that deficiency-free inspections are uncommon in the industry.

This facility received a very good nursing grade this year as well. It received one of our better scores in that category with a grade of B. Our nursing score is largely based on the facility's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures and this place excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any nursing home the state in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as having a policy of moving patients even once per day.

Our last category is long-term care, in which we gave this nursing home a C in this area. For long-term care residents, the primary goal is to keep patients healthy and safe. This is different than skilled nursing or short-term care where the goal is to rehabilitate residents. In addition to assessing the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 96.20253 percent of its residents. Finally, this place was also able to limit hospitalizations. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.