Aspen Park of Cascadia

On top of being a strong nursing home overall, this nursing home really excelled in our inspections category, where it received an A. Few facilities fared better in this category. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in determining our inspection ratings. One key factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of the deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the number of deficiencies, as some of these can be relatively minor. Fortunately, although this place had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you that the inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Among the reasons we rated this facility so well is that it was awarded a dominant long-term care grade. In fact, long-term care ended up being its second best category grade. In that area, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A-. Nursing homes that receive this kind of score in this category typically provide consistent around the clock care to make sure patients are kept in good health. In addition to assessing the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is very impressive. Pneumonia can be a life or death illness for nursing home patients so we like it when a nursing home doesn't take any chances. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

Another one of this facility's impressive category grades came in the area of nursing care. We awarded them one of our better scores in that area, with a grade of B. When calculating a nursing home's nursing rating, we consider the number of hours nurses are caring for patients and the skill levels of those nurses. This particular nursing home provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics 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 place Idaho in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as by having a system of turning patients at least once a day.

The last category we assessed was this facility's poorest category. Nevertheless, even in its weakest link we still awarded it a respectable grade of C for our short-term care category. Short-term care grades are crucial for residents looking for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically utilizes higher levels of highly-skilled nursing. This includes a wide spectrum of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all facilities employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the information they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last item we considered in this area is the percentage of residents who ultimately returned home from the nursing home. We found that just 3.9 percent of this facility's patients returned home. Unfortunately, this was below the national average.