Brookdale Spicewood Springs

In addition to being a first-rate facility overall, this nursing home also excelled in the category of short-term care, where it received an elite grade of A+. Few facilities fared better in this category. In determining our short-term care ratings, we look at a facility's levels of skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists occupational therapists and other licensed professionals. This grade is frequently a useful assessment of a nursing home's rehabilitation. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. However, based on the information they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we looked at the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 6.6 percent of this facility's residents returned home.

Adding to this facility's impressive resume, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A for our inspections rating. Our inspection scores account for several factors included in a nursing home's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we consider is the number and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better grades in this category typically have very few severe deficiencies. While this nursing home had a few minor dings on its report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are 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 was strong in the area of long-term care, where it received a score of A-. Not many facilities fared better in this area. Long-term care grades in this range generally require both 24/7 care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine medical care. Once we finished looking at the quantity of nursing care, we turned to the facility's vaccination data. This nursing home vaccinated 97.5 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is very impressive. Pneumonia can be a deadly illness for nursing home residents so we like it when a nursing home doesn't leave its residents vulnerable. Finally, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

The last category we graded was nursing, where this facility was awarded a grade of A-. This completed a very impressive report card. Very few nursing homes received an A- or better in all four categories. There are a variety of data points included in this grade. Many of the subcategories reflect levels of nurse staffing. This particular nursing home provided 0.7 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed 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 place the nation in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as by having a protocol of moving residents more often.