Buckingham Valley Rehabilitation and Nursingcenter

This nursing home received a strong overall score as described above, but we especially wanted to point out its nearly flawless inspections in recent years. We awarded them an A+ in this area. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in calculating these inspection scores. One critical factor is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of deficiencies is arguably more important than the quantity of deficiencies, as some end up being relatively insignificant. While this facility had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means the government inspectors 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 nursing home was awarded high marks in the area of long-term care as well. In fact, it received one of our best grades in that category with a score of A-. Facilities that receive this type of score in long-term care typically provide consistent around the clock care to make sure patients are well cared for. On top of looking at the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility provided the vaccine to 96.39889 percent of its residents. Vaccines are vital to keeping residents healthy. Clearly, this place 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 nursing home's next best area is its short-term care score, where it was awarded a grade of C. Our short-term care scores are critical for individuals looking for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically requires more highly-skilled nursing. Skilled nursing means a vast spectrum of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the information they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final item we considered in this category is the number of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return home. We discovered that just 4.5 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home, which is below average.

Switching gears to our fourth category, this facility received a C for nursing, which is generally an acceptable rating. Nursing ratings are based largely on levels of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a much lower figure than we are used to seeing. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality measures. While this facility got dinged a bit for nursing hours, it actually excelled in some of these quality-based metrics. With fewer than five percent of its patients suffering from pressure ulcers, it did well in this area. This is often an indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by employing a policy of turning a resident at least once a day.