Aspen Transitional Rehabilitation

In addition to faring well overall, this facility received high marks in our short-term care category as well. As a result, it received our highest grade in that category with a score of A+. Short-term care grades are commonly employed to judge a nursing home's rehabilitation services. To provide good rehabilitation services, nursing homes generally need to provide higher levels of skilled nursing services. These types of services include registered nurses, physical therapists, speech therapists and other highly skilled individuals. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the information they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Finally, we considered the number of patients that returned home from this facility. We found that 7.5 percent of this facility's residents returned home.

To complement its strong achievements in other areas, we gave this facility a grade of A for its long-term care grade. Facilities that receive this kind of grade in long-term care tend to provide consistent around the clock care to make sure patients are kept in good health. This nursing home is head and heels above most nursing homes in this category.

We also wanted to emphasize the fact that this facility received an impressive grade of A in our nursing category. In calculating a nursing home's nursing grade, we weigh the number of hours nurses are with patients and the level of skill of those nurses. This particular nursing home provided 0.7 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at 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 many times be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as by employing a protocol of turning residents at least once a day.

In addition, this facility also earned a nearly flawless inspection. As a result, it received one of our highest grades in that category with an A-. With this impressive grade, this place is one of the few facilities in Idaho to earn straight A's. Our inspection grades are based on several items found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that score well in this area have very few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these nursing homes generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. This place was assessed 2 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe deficiencies. This indicates that the inspectors did not deem any of these deficiencies to create an immediate risk to resident safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.