Canterbury Health Care Facility

To go along with its strong overall grade, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A for our inspections rating. Inspection scores account for several factors included in a facility's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we consider is the number and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with higher grades in this area tend to have very few severe deficiencies. This particular nursing home received 5 deficiencies on its inspection report. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This nursing home is also above average in the category of long-term care, where it was given a score of B+. It outperformed most nursing homes in this area. For patients in need of a permanent residence as opposed to skilled nursing, long-term care is a very important category. In addition to considering the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility vaccinated 88.49315 percent of its residents, which is slightly lower than we expected. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

This nursing home also received a strong nursing score. In fact, we awarded it an above average grade of B in this area. There are a number of datapoints included in this area. Most of these datapoints are tied to the quantity and quality of nurse staffing. This particular nursing home provided 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed 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 state in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by having a policy of moving a patient at least once a day.

The last category we graded was short-term care. We gave this nursing home a grade of C in that area. In crafting our short-term care ratings, we assess the facility's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The goal is to create a barometer for sizing up the rehabilitation services of various nursing homes. Unfortunately, it does not appear that this nursing home provided data regarding its registered nurse or physical therapy staffing. The final item we assessed in this area is the number of patients who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We discovered that just 4.9 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home, which is actually below average.