Care One at New Milford

On top of being a first rate nursing home overall, this nursing home also performed well in the area of inspections, where it received an A+. Few places performed this well in this category. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in computing our inspection scores. One critical factor is health deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of these deficiencies is usually more important than the quantity of deficiencies, as some of these end up being quite insignificant. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

On the list of its many impressive scores, this facility was awarded first-rate long-term care score. In fact, it received a score of A- in this area. When nursing homes receive this type of grade in this category it is a good sign for patient care and indicates that the nursing home is well-staffed with nurses and aids. One of the statistics we considered in addition to nursing hours is vaccines. This nursing home administered the pneumonia vaccination to 100 percent of its patients. Vaccination is a reliable method to minimize negative health outcomes for the senior population. Finally, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, 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. Our nursing score weighs many subcategories, most of which are based on levels of nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at some nursing quality measures in determining our nursing grades. This place performed very well when it comes to minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

The last area we analyzed was short-term care, where this facility was given a grade of B. While this turned out to be its lowest category score, this is nevertheless an above average score. Short-term care grades are often used to assess a nursing home's rehabilitation services. In order to offer high-end rehabilitation services, nursing homes generally need to have better levels of highly skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists and other highly skilled individuals. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the information they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Finally, we assessed the percentage of residents who ultimately returned home from this facility. We found that 4.8 percent of this nursing home's patients were able to return home.