Banner Boswell Rehabilitation Center

In addition to receiving a great overall grade, this facility also received A+ short-term care grade. In computing our short-term care scores, we assess a nursing home's levels of skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists occupational therapists and other highly trained professionals. This grade is often a useful measure of the facility's rehabilitation services. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the information they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Lastly, we considered the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 7.4 percent of this facility's patients returned home.

In addition, this facility received high marks in the area of nursing. As a result, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A+. Nursing scores are largely associated with the nursing home's nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0.6 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This place 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 many times be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

Adding to this facility's impressive resume, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A- for our inspections rating. Inspection scores weigh several factors found on a nursing home's inspection reports. One key criteria we look at is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with higher grades in this area tend to have few of these severe deficiencies. Although this facility had some deficiencies on its inspection report, none of them were severe based on CMS' deficiency scale. We should note that deficiency-free inspections are uncommon in this industry.

The final category we rated was long-term care. This nursing home received a strong nursing score in our assessment, with a B. While this isn't as impressive as many of its other grades, this remains one of the stronger scores in this area. In a long-term care environment, the primary objective is to maintain residents' quality of life and keep them safe. In addition to considering the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. We weren't able to track down this facility's vaccination rates. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.