Care One at Wellington

Care One at Wellington is a large facility located in Hackensack, New Jersey. This facility received an A- overall, which is one of the best grades we offer. A grade of this caliber requires first-rate scores across the board. We were so impressed with this facility that we ranked it in the top 25 percent of all nursing homes in the United States. We also gave this facility strong grades in all of the major categories. More information about these categories can be found below.

In addition to being a great overall grade, this facility also received A+ health inspections in recent years. Its inspections were virtually flawless. Perhaps the most important factor we consider in determining our inspection grades is deficiencies. Deficiencies are found on a nursing home's inspection reports. Places with better grades in this area typically avoided the most severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. We were not able to locate deficiency data for this facility. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Adding to its top-shelf resume, this nursing home also was given an excellent short-term care score, with a score of A. Our short-term care grades are important for individuals requiring rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally requires additional skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing means a wide scope of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. This nursing home provides more services with physical therapists and registered nurses than most nursing homes we looked at. This is usually a favorable sign. Lastly, we looked at the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that it outperformed the vast majority of facilities in this area with 63.1 percent of its patients returning home.

This facility also was awarded a strong long-term care grade. Indeed, we awarded it an above average score of B+ in this category. Nursing homes that do well in this category typically are well-staffed and provide extensive hands on care to patients. On top of considering the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility provided the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents. Vaccines are vital to keeping patients out of the hospital. This facility was also able to keep its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had just 1.26 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a substantially better hospitalization rate than the average nursing home.

The final area we analyzed proved to be this nursing home's worst category. Nevertheless, even its worst category would actually be a highlight for most nursing homes. We gave it a strong grade of B for nursing. Our nursing score is based on the facility's level of nurse staffing. We look at both the levels of training of those nurses and the quantity of hours spent with patients. This nursing home provides 3.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This place performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a place has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can generally be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.