Bancroft Healthcare Center

In addition to being a great nursing home overall, it also earned A+ health inspections in recent years. Its inspections were nearly flawless. Inspection scores weigh several factors found on a nursing home's inspection report. One key criteria we weigh heavily is the number and severity of deficiencies. Places with better scores in this category typically have very few of these severe deficiencies. This place was assessed 2 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe. This indicates that the inspectors didn't deem any of the deficiencies to be an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Remember that deficiency-free inspection reports are rare in the industry.

This facility received high grades in the area of nursing as well. In fact, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A-. Nursing ratings are heavily correlated with levels of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.3 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 place has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can typically be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

Additionally, this nursing home also was awarded favorable short-term care scores this year. Indeed, we gave it one of our stronger scores in that area, with a grade of B+. In the area of short-term care, we try to evaluate measures of a facility's rehabilitation services. We analyze a nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses and physical and occupational therapists. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the data they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Finally, we looked at the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home.

The final category we rated is long-term care, in which this facility received a B-. This turned out to be this nursing home's weakest area. This is still not the end of the world. For long-term care residents, the primary goal is to keep patients healthy and safe. This is different than skilled nursing or short-term care where the goal is to rehabilitate residents. After assessing the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we next considered the facility's vaccination records. We weren't able to track down information about this nursing home's vaccination rates. Finally, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.