Arizona State Veteran Home-Tucson

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a great nursing home is that it received an A+ nursing grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this category. When calculating our nursing grades, we look at both the number of hours nurses spend with residents and the levels of licensure of those nurses. This nursing home averages 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also assessed some nursing quality-based metrics in determining our nursing grades. This nursing home performed very well in terms of avoiding major falls and pressure ulcers. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

Adding to its impressive category scores, this facility also excelled in the category of inspections, where it earned an A. Not many nursing homes performed as well in this area. Our inspection grades account for a host of factors found on a facility's inspection report. One key criteria we look at is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with higher grades in this category generally have very few of these severe deficiencies. 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. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

The third category we analyzed was short-term care. Contributing to its strong resume, this facility also performed well in this area. In fact, we gave it a grade of of A- in that area. Our short-term care grades are crucial for people in need of rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically utilizes additional skilled nursing. Skilled nursing means a wide spectrum of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the data they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final datapoint we considered in this category is the number of patients who were able to leave the nursing home and return home. We discovered that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients were able to return home.

Switching gears to the fourth area, this facility also excelled in the long-term care category. In fact, we gave it an A- in that category. This wrapped up a straight A report card. Facilities that excel in long-term care typically provide residents with more supervision and stay on top of routine healthcare services. In addition to looking at the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility provided the vaccine to 97.872345 percent of its patients, which is what we like to see. Pneumonia is often a dangerous health condition for nursing home residents so we like it when a facility does not roll the dice on this issue. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.