Brookside Nursing Center

This nursing home received a strong overall grade as described above, but we especially wanted to point out its excellent nursing rating. We awarded them an A in this area. When calculating our nursing ratings, we assess both nursing hours and the levels of licensure of those nurses. This particular nursing home provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also looked at some nursing quality-based metrics in determining our nursing grades. This facility performed very well in the area of minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

In addition, this facility also performed well in inspections, which is based on its inspection reports. We awarded it an A for that category. Our inspection scores weigh several factors found on a facility's inspection reports. One key criteria we look at is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with better scores in this category typically have very few severe deficiencies. This particular nursing home received 5 deficiencies on its inspection report. Overall, this is still a good inspection report, but we'd always recommend looking into any deficiencies you find troubling.

This facility's next best category was its long-term care score, where it was given a B-. Our long-term care grade is often used to assess a facility's performance as a traditional nursing home, as opposed to focusing more on the skilled nursing services provided by a skilled nursing facility. On top of considering the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home vaccinated 88.94737 percent of its patients. This is many points lower than average. Fortunately, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. It had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

The next category we analyzed was this facility's poorest category. However, even in its weakest link we still gave it an acceptable grade of B- in short-term care. In the area of short-term care, we attempt to qualify indicators of a nursing home's rehabilitation. We analyze a facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses and physical, occupational and other therapists. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not all facilities employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the information they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we considered the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 4.9 percent of this facility's patients returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their patients are able to return home so this figure is below average.