Bethany on 42nd

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a great nursing home is that it received a very impressive long-term care grade. In that area, we awarded this nursing home an A. Nursing homes that do well in long-term care tend to be well-staffed and offer extensive hands on care to residents. One of the factors we considered after nursing hours was vaccines. This facility administered the pneumonia vaccination to 100 percent of its patients. Vaccination is a reliable method to avoid unnecessary hospitalizations for the senior population. Finally, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

Turning to our inspection category, this facility excelled in that area, which is based on the facility's recent inspections. We awarded it a grade of A for that category. Our inspection ratings account for a host of factors included in a facility's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we look at is the number and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with higher grades in this category generally have few severe deficiencies. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

We also wanted to emphasize the fact that this facility received an impressive grade of A in our nursing category. The nursing score includes a handful of datapoints, most of which are tied to levels of nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 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 place has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can generally be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

The last category we graded was short-term care, where this facility was awarded a grade of B. Believe it or not, this is this nursing home's least impressive category. A nursing home is doing something right when it's weakest grade still is better than most other nursing homes. Short-term care grades are typically used to measure a nursing home's rehabilitation services. To offer highly graded rehabilitation services, nursing homes generally need to offer better levels of highly skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, speech therapists and other highly skilled individuals. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the data they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last metric we considered in this category is the number of residents who eventually returned home from the nursing home. We found that 3.8 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.