Caremeridian-Buffalo

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a great nursing home is that it received an A+ nursing grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this category. Nursing scores are based in large part on quantity of nursing care available. This facility provided 0.7 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality measures and this nursing home excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any facility the country in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as having a system of turning a resident more frequently.

Adding to its impressive category grades, this facility also excelled in the category of inspections, where it earned a grade of A-. Inspection grades are based on many datapoints located in the a nursing home's inspections. Nursing homes that receive favorable grades in this category have few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these facilities generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. This facility was assessed 9 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe deficiencies. This indicates that CMS didn't consider any of the deficiencies to create an immediate threat to patient safety or health. We should note that deficiency-free inspection reports are rare in this industry.

The third area we graded is short-term care. This nursing home was awarded an above average short-term care score, with a B+ in the category. Short-term care grades are important for people requiring rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally utilizes higher levels of highly-skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes a wide range of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not all facilities employs these types of nurses. However, according to the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Finally, we looked at the number of patients who were able to return home from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents were able to return home.

In the final category, this nursing home also received a first-rate long-term care rating, with a B+. This wrapped up an elite report card. For long-term care residents, the primary objective is to maintain residents' quality of life and keep them safe. On top of considering the volume of care provided by nurses and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 86.56716 percent of its residents. This is a bit less than we anticipated. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.