Bear Lake Memorial Skilled Nursing Facility

In addition to receiving a great overall grade, this nursing home received an A+ in the area of long-term care. Long-term care grades of this caliber generally require both 24/7 care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine healthcare services. In addition to offering elite levels of nurse staffing, this facility administered the pneumonia vaccine to 100 percent of its residents. This statistic is also significantly higher than the majority of nursing homes. This combination proved to be successful as this nursing home also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 1.14 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a significantly lower hospitalization rate than the majority of nursing homes.

To complement its strong performance in other areas, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A- for our inspections rating. Our nursing grade is primarily tied to a nursing home's nurse staffing. This place provides an incredible 4.3 hours of nursing care per resident each day. Out of that total, many of the hours were provided by registered nurses, which is one of the most highly trained levels of nurses. On top of providing high levels of nursing care, this nursing home also excelled in several of the quality-based metrics we assessed. With under five percent of its residents suffering from pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any facility the country in this category. This is often an indicator that a facility has reliable quality controls. Many pressure ulcers can be avoided by providing better nursing care and having a policy of turning patients more frequently.

This nursing home also was dominant in the area of short-term care, where it received a score of A-. Not many facilities received a better grade in this category. Our short-term care grades are based in part on a nursing home's quantity of skilled highly skilled professionals. This means a vast range of services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, in addition to other forms of therapy. One of this nursing home's strengths is that it offers more than an hour of care per day from registered nurses to each resident. This is really the gold standard for this area, as it's about 50% higher than the average place's level of registered nurse staffing. The final measure we assessed in this area is the number of patients that eventually returned home from the facility. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

Adding to this nursing home's impressive profile, we awarded this nursing home an A- for our inspections rating. With this score, the nursing home completes its straight A report card. Our inspection grades account for a host of factors found on a facility's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we rely on is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with better scores in this area usually have few of these severe deficiencies. Fortunately, although this place had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you that the government inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.