Berkeley Square Retirement Center

One of the reasons this turned out to be a quality nursing home is that it received an A+ inspection grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this critical category. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in calculating these inspection ratings. One critical factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of the deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some deficiencies are relatively minor. While this place had some deficiencies on its report, none of them were major deficiencies based on CMS' deficiency scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Among its many elite grades, this facility received a top-shelf long-term care score. In fact, it received a grade of A in this category. Nursing homes that receive this type of grade in long-term care typically provide consistent around the clock care to ensure residents are kept in good health. Once we concluded our assessment of the amount of nursing care, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination records. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia can be a dangerous ailment for nursing home residents so we strongly prefer when a facility does not roll the dice on this issue. Lastly, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This nursing home also received a strong nursing score. In fact, we awarded it an above average grade of B+ in this area. Our nursing grade features a host of datapoints. The most heavily weighted one is the amount of time nurses spent with patients. 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 facility has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can generally be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

The final category we scored ended up being this nursing home's worst area. Nevertheless, even in its worst category we still awarded it a respectable grade of B- in short-term care. In our short-term care grade, we seek to forge a meaningful gauge for rehabilitation services. In doing so, we analyze the nursing home's scope of skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as speech therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we considered the number of residents that ultimately were able to return home from this nursing home. We found that 4.3 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home. This figure was actually quite a bit below the national average.