Burlington Care Center

Burlington Care Center is one of just two nursing homes in Burlington, Iowa. This nursing home turns out to be an A+ facility, which is the top grade. Based on our assessment, this facility is really as good as it gets. Scroll down to see this facility's category scores, which also impressed us. You just can't do any better than a straight A report card.

In addition to a phenomenal overall grade, this facility also received A+ nursing grade. There are numerous subcategories included in this grade. Many of these criteria relate to the quantity of nurse staffing. This facility provides an incredible 4.7 hours of nursing care per patient each day. Out of that total, many of those hours were provided by registered nurses, which is one of the more highly trained levels of nurses. On top of offering high levels of nursing care, this facility was also above average in several of the major quality-based metrics we looked at in this category. It performed well in terms of minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls.

The next category we looked at was inspections, where this facility also received an A+ grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this critical category. Our inspection scores are based on several datapoints found on the a nursing home's recent inspections. Places that receive favorable grades in this category have very few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these nursing homes generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. While this place had a few deficiencies on its inspection report, none of them were serious based on CMS' deficiency scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This nursing home also was elite in the area of long-term care, where we gave it a grade of A. Few facilities performed better in this area. When nursing homes receive this type of score in long-term care it is typically a good sign for patient care and suggests that the facility is well-staffed with nurses aids. One of the statistics we considered on top of this nursing home's impressive nursing hours is vaccinations. This nursing home provided the pneumonia vaccination to 100 percent of its residents. Vaccines are a great way to avoid unnecessary deaths and hospitalizations for seniors. Lastly, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. Although it had 1.78 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, its risk adjusted score was better than most nursing homes since it had more complicated patients.

In the final area, this facility also was given an excellent short-term care score, with an A. This finished off a very strong profile. Our short-term care scores are meaningful for prospective residents needing rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically requires additional skilled nursing services. This includes a vast scope of services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. This nursing home elevated its grade in this category by offering more care from registered nurses to its residents than the average facility. The final statistic we assessed in this category is the number of residents that who were able to eventually return home from the facility. We found that it fared better than most facilities in this area with 52.8 percent of its patients returning home.