Brentwood Health Care Center

This nursing home received a strong overall score as mentioned above, but we especially wanted to emphasize its excellent long-term care score. We gave them an impressive grade of A in this category. Long-term care grades of this caliber generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine medical care. On top of considering the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home gave the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia is too frequently a dangerous condition for nursing home residents so we like it when a facility does not leave this to chance. 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 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

This facility also performed well in inspections. In fact, it earned a nearly flawless inspection report this year. As a result, it received one of our highest scores in that area with an A-. Few nursing homes with an overall grade in this range performed as well in multiple categories. Inspection grades take several factors into consideration, including deficiencies and federal fines. You can find more information about each of these issues by reviewing copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. Fortunately, although this facility had a few minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means that CMS didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This facility also was given a strong short-term care score. In fact, we awarded it an above average score of B in this category. In determining our short-term care scores, we scrutinize a nursing home's levels of highly skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists respiratory therapists and other licensed professionals. This rating is considered to be a reliable assessment of the facility's ability to rehabilitate patients. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. However, based on the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final measure we considered in this category is the number of patients who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We discovered that 5.5 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home.

Switching gears to our fourth area, we awarded this facility a D in our nursing category. This is the facility's worst category rating. Unfortunately, this category pulled down the facility's overall profile a bit. There are many factors included in this category. Most of these subcategories are tied to nurse staffing. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low total compared to most nursing homes. Although this facility's nursing hours are below average, it surprised us in a few of the qualitative metrics in this category. In particular, we were pleased to see that its patients are sustaining fewer pressure ulcers than most nursing homes.