Brighton Gardens of Omaha

In addition to being a strong facility overall, it also earned A+ health inspections in recent years. Its inspections were virtually flawless. Inspection ratings weigh a host of factors found on a facility's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we weigh heavily is the number and severity of deficiencies. Places with better grades in this category generally have few severe deficiencies. While this facility had some minor dings on its inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means that the inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This nursing home also received an A+ for its nursing grade. Nursing scores are primarily associated with a facility's nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics and this facility excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place the nation 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 employing a policy of moving patients even once per day.

The third area we analyzed is short-term care. This facility was superb in our short-term care category also. We gave them a dominant grade of A+ in this area. Our short-term care scores are considered to be more critical for patients in need of rehabilitation from their nursing home. Rehabilitation typically requires higher levels of skilled nursing. Skilled nursing means not just nursing services, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other variations of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. However, according to the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last statistic we looked at in this area is the percentage of patients that returned home from the nursing home. We found that 7.1 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

The last category we scored is long-term care. We awarded them another superb grade of A+ in this area. This topped off a amazing profile of four A+'s. When nursing homes receive a score in this range in long-term care it generally means it has plenty of staff and is a quality place to reside on a permanent basis. Once we finished looking at the amount of nursing care, we next considered the facility's vaccination records. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is very impressive. Pneumonia tragically can be a deadly health condition for nursing home residents so we like it when a nursing home does not roll the dice on this issue. Lastly, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.