Amberwood Gardens

This nursing home's overall score was bolstered by the fact that it has received favorable government inspections in recent years. We gave them a strong score in this category, with a B+. This is a much better grade than the facility's overall score. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in computing our inspection grades. One critical factor is health deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of these deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some deficiencies end up being relatively minor. Although this nursing home had a few deficiencies on its inspection report, none of them were severe based on CMS' scale. A couple minor deficiencies should not lead you to cross a nursing home off your list.

This nursing home also was awarded a positive score in our long-term care category. We gave this nursing home a better than average grade of B in this area. When nursing homes receive this type of grade in this category it is typically a good sign for resident care and indicates that the facility is well-staffed with nurses and aids. On top of assessing the amount 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 100 percent of its residents, which is very impressive. Pneumonia sadly is often a deadly ailment for nursing home residents so we strongly prefer when a nursing home doesn't roll the dice on this issue. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This nursing home's next best category was nursing. We awarded it a grade of B- in this category. This is basically a middle of the road grade in this category. The nursing rating is based on a handful of subcategories, however, the primary consideration is the quantity of nurse hours per patient per week. This particular facility provided just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This figure is significantly below the national average. Lastly, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. Despite not having the highest total nursing hours per resident, this place actually performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is typically a reliable indicator that a place has sufficient quality controls in place. Some falls can be avoided if a facility provides enough nurses to assist its patients.

The next category we rated is short-term care, which is this facility's worst category. We awarded this nursing home a grade of D in this area. Our short-term care scores are presumably most important for individuals needing rehabilitation from their nursing home. Rehabilitation usually requires additional skilled nursing services. This means not merely nursing services, but also physical and respiratory therapy, as well as other types of therapy. Not surprisingly, we found that this nursing home provides far less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than the average facility. The final datapoint we considered in this category is the number of patients who returned home from the facility. This nursing home struggled quite a bit in this area as well, with just 3.7 percent of its patients returning home.