Birchwood Care Center

In addition to performing well in its overall grade, this facility 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 ratings account for several factors found on a facility's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we look at is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Nursing homes with better scores in this area typically have few severe deficiencies. Although this nursing home had a few deficiencies on its government inspection report, none of them were severe based on CMS' scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Another one of this nursing home's above average category grades came in the category of long-term care. We awarded them one of our higher scores in that area, with a score of B+. Long-term care ratings in this range generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine healthcare services. One of the criteria we considered after nurse's aid hours is vaccines. This facility provided the pneumonia vaccine to 93.023254 percent of its residents. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This nursing home's third best category was short-term care. We awarded it a B- in this category. This is essentially a slightly below average score in this area. Our short-term care scores are important for prospective residents in need of rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually requires additional skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes a broad range of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. Unfortunately, it does not look like this facility submitted information on registered nurse or physical therapist staffing. The final measure we considered in this category is the percentage of residents that eventually returned home from the facility. We found that just 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home. Unfortunately, this was below average.

The final category we assessed is nursing. This facility received a C for this area. Nursing ratings are based largely on quantity of nursing care available. This nursing home provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident on a daily basis. This is a lower figure than we are used to seeing. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics. Although this facility got dinged a bit for nursing hours per resident, it excelled in a few of these quality-based metrics. With fewer than five percent of its residents experiencing pressure ulcers, it did very well in this metric. This is typically a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as having a policy of turning residents more frequently.