Autumn Leaves

In addition to receiving a great overall grade, this facility also received an A+ long-term care grade. Nursing homes that receive this type of grade in this category typically provide consistent around the clock care to make sure patients are well cared for. In addition to looking at the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia is often a dangerous illness for nursing home residents so we strongly prefer when a nursing home does not roll the dice on this issue. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Among its many impressive grades, this facility received an excellent nursing grade. In fact, we gave it a grade of A in that category. Nursing ratings are primarily based on the facility's level of nurse staffing. This particular nursing home provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures and this facility excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any nursing home the country in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as having a system of moving a resident more frequently.

We also would like to emphasize the fact that this nursing home was given a top-shelf score of A in our short-term care category. Our short-term care ratings are thought to be more critical for patients in need of rehabilitation from their nursing home. Rehabilitation generally utilizes higher levels of skilled nursing. This means not only nursing services, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the information this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we considered the number of patients that who were able to eventually return home from this facility. We found that 5.4 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home.

Lastly, we wanted to emphasize this nursing home's nearly flawless inspections in recent years. We gave them a B+ in this category. This wraps up a very strong report card for this facility. Our inspection ratings are based on several data points located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes that receive favorable grades in this category typically have very few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these facilities generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. 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.