Bethesda of Beresford

On top of performing well in its overall grade, this nursing home performed at an even higher level in the area of inspections. In fact, it received a nearly flawless inspection report this year. As a result, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A-. Inspection scores are tied to many datapoints located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that receive favorable grades in this area typically have few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these facilities generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. While this facility had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as 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. Remember that deficiency-free inspections are uncommon in this industry.

This facility really excelled in the area of nursing, where it received a grade of A-. Few nursing homes performed better in this area. The nursing score considers several subcategories. The most heavily weighted variable is the number of hours nurses spent with residents. This particular nursing home provided 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics and this nursing home excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any nursing home the country in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can typically be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by having a system of moving patients more frequently.

This facility is also strong in the category of long-term care, where it was given a grade of B. It outperformed most nursing homes in this category. When nursing homes receive a grade in this range in long-term care it generally means it's well-staffed and is an overall good place to live on a permanent basis. After assessing the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we then looked at the facility's vaccination records. This nursing home vaccinated 97.24138 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is significantly higher than the vast majority of nursing homes. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

The next area we looked at was short-term care, where this nursing home was awarded a grade of B-. This turned out to be this nursing home's weakest area. This is still not the end of the world. In computing our short-term care scores, we quantify the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. The objective is to formulate a scale for comparing the rehabilitation services of various facilities. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we looked at the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 4.4 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their residents are able to return home so this figure is below average.