Apache Junction Hlth Center

In addition to faring well overall, this nursing home received a nearly flawless inspection report. Consequently, it received one of our highest scores in that category with an A+. Perhaps the most critical factor we consider in calculating our inspection grades is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a facility's inspection reports. Nursing homes with better scores in this area most likely dodged the most severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Even some of the best nursing homes receive an occasional ding on their inspection report.

This nursing home also was awarded a impressive short-term care score. This actually is its second strongest category score. In that category, we gave this facility a grade of A. Short-term care grades are generally employed to judge a facility's performance with rehabilitation. In order to have good rehabilitation services, nursing homes generally need to feature higher levels of skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, respiratory therapists and other types of therapists. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the information this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final measure we considered in this area is the number of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return home. We found that 6.6 percent of this nursing home's residents were able to return home.

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 rating looks at the facility's nurse staffing levels. We factor in both the levels of skill of the nurses as well as the quantity of hours spent with patients. This nursing home averages 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This place performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a place has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can generally be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

Switching gears to our next area, this nursing home also performed admirably in our long-term care category. We gave it a grade of B+ for that area. This rounded out a first-rate report card. Nursing homes that excel in this category tend to be well-staffed and offer extensive hands on care to residents. In addition to looking at the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home provided the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents. Vaccines are critical to keeping residents out of the hospital. Finally, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.