Birchwood Care Home

The primary reason this turned out to be a decent nursing home is that it received an elite inspection grade. Its inspection grade was far better than its overall score. In the inspections category, we gave it an A-. Our inspection ratings are based on many datapoints found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that excel in this area tend to have very few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these facilities should not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. This nursing home received 2 deficiencies on its inspection report, but fortunately none of the deficiencies were considered to be major deficiencies. This means that the inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies to cause an imminent threat to patient health or safety. A couple minor deficiencies should not lead you to cross a nursing home off your list.

One of the other reasons we rated this facility so highly is that it received a very impressive nursing grade. In that category, we awarded this nursing home an B-. There are a variety of datapoints within this area. Many of the criteria relate to the quantity and quality of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.1 hours of nursing care per patient per day. This is a lower figure than we are used to seeing. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this facility actually fared better in some of the quality-based metrics we looked at. In fact, it performed well in terms of avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be reliable indicators of the quality of nursing care. In some cases, the quality of nursing care is as important as the quantity of hours of care provided.

This facility was given its third best category grade in the area of short-term care. We awarded this nursing home a B- in this category, which is a reasonably acceptable grade. In the category of short-term care, we seek to qualify indicators of a nursing home's rehabilitation. We analyze a facility's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses and physical and occupational therapists. In this nursing home's case, we were surprised to learn that it actually provides less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per patient than a typical facility. Lastly, we assessed the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's patients returned home. At most nursing homes, closer to half of their residents are able to return home so this figure is below average.

The last category we analyzed is long-term care. We awarded this nursing home a C in that category. For residents looking for a permanent residence as opposed to skilled nursing, long-term care grades are very important. One of the statistics we considered after nursing hours is vaccinations. Candidly, we were a bit worried that this facility provided the pneumonia vaccination to just 82.403435 percent of its residents. Nevertheless, this place was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.