Aspen Rehab & Health Care

One of the reasons this place received a great overall grade is that it received a very impressive nursing score. Nursing actually ended up being its best category. In that category, we awarded this nursing home an A-. In calculating a nursing home's nursing score, we consider the quantity of hours nurses spend with patients and the level of skill of the nurses. This nursing home provides 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 nursing home performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a nursing home has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can generally be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

This facility also excelled in the area of inspections. In fact, we gave it an A- for that category, which is one of our highest scores. This is one of the few nursing homes with an overall grade in this range which received multiple category grades this high. Our inspection ratings weigh a host of factors included in a nursing home's inspection report. One key criteria we rely on is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Nursing homes with higher scores in this category usually have few severe deficiencies. Fortunately, although this place had some minor dings on its inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are found in categories G through L. This tells you the inspectors didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. We should point out that deficiency-free inspections are uncommon in this industry.

We also gave this facility a middle of the road score in the area of long-term care, where it received a grade of B-. In our long-term care assessment, we look at the sheer volume of services offered by a facility, along with a series of quality measures. One of the datapoints we considered on top of nurse's aid hours is vaccines. Thankfully, this nursing home provided the pneumonia vaccine to 99 percent of its residents. This facility was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

Switching gears to our fourth category, this facility received an acceptable short-term care grade of B-. In calculating our short-term care scores, we assess a facility's levels of highly skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists speech therapists and other licensed professionals. This area is considered to be a meaningful assessment of the nursing home's rehabilitation. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the information they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last item we looked at in this category is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the facility and return home. We discovered that just 0 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home, which is below average.