Belmont Lodge Health Care Center

While we were not high on this facility's overall score, it received a very impressive inspection report this year. In fact, it received a nearly flawless inspection report this year. As a result, it earned one of our highest scores in that category with an A-. Inspection grades are based on many items found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Deficiencies are an important item to look for on these inspections. Most importantly, you should avoid nursing homes that have severe deficiencies linked to risks to resident well being. Fortunately, although this place had some minor dings on its inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means CMS did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. A couple minor deficiencies are not the end of the world.

This nursing home actually received a decent grade in the area of nursing as well. We awarded it a grade of B- for that category, which is not a bad score. The nursing grade weighs a handful of factors, however, the most important one is the quantity of nurse hours per patient per week. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a relatively low total compared to most other facilities. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this facility actually excelled in some of the quality measures we looked at. It performed well when it comes to minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. Many consider these areas to be reliable indicators of the quality of nursing care. In some cases, the quality of nursing care is every bit as important as the number of hours of care provided.

The third area we assessed was short-term care, where this nursing home was given a grade of C in this area. With our short-term care assessment, we endeavor to create a meaningful barometer for rehabilitation. In this process, we look at the facility's levels of highly-skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as occupational therapy. Unfortunately, we found that this nursing home provided fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than most other facilities. The key is determining what bearing this had on quality of care. Lastly, we assessed the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 4.5 percent of this facility's patients returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their patients are able to return home so this figure is below average.

The last category we analyzed was long-term care, where this nursing home received a poor grade here also. It received a lowly F in this area, which is definitely a major concern. Long-term care grades of this caliber generally are a bad sign for the quantity and quality of care provided by nurses and aids. After considering the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination statistics. We were a bit concerned this nursing home vaccinated 84.29119 percent of its residents for pneumonia, which is quite a few points lower than what we expected. To our surprise, this place was actually decent at keeping its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days. This was its best feature in this category.