Avamere Rehabilitation of Hillsboro

One of the reasons this turned out to be a great nursing home is that it received a very impressive short-term care grade. In fact, this proved to be its best category. In that category, we awarded this facility an A. Short-term care scores are based in part on a facility's quantity of skilled highly skilled professionals. This includes a broad spectrum of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all facilities employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we assessed the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 6.7 percent of this facility's patients returned home.

Turning to inspections, this nursing home excelled in that area, which is based on the nursing home's recent government inspections. In fact, we awarded it a grade of A- for that category. Our inspection scores account for a host of factors found on a nursing home's inspection reports. One key criteria we look at is the number and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with higher scores in this area typically have few severe deficiencies. While this place had some deficiencies on its report, none were severe based on CMS' scale. Keep in mind that deficiency-free inspections are rare in this industry.

Adding to its strong resume, this facility also received an excellent nursing score, with a grade of A-. Our nursing grade is largely tied to the facility's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This facility 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 many times be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

In the final category, this nursing home also was given a first-rate long-term care score, with a grade of B+. This topped off a very favorable report card. Nursing homes that receive this type of grade in this category typically provide consistent 24/7 care to make sure patients are well cared for. In addition to looking at the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the number 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 ailment for nursing home patients so we strongly prefer when a facility doesn't take any chances. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.