Caretel Inns of Brighton

In addition to receiving a great overall grade, this facility also received A+ short-term care grade. Short-term care grades are typically used to gauge a facility's performance with rehabilitation. In order to provide good rehabilitation services, nursing homes generally must provide higher levels of highly skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, speech therapists and other highly trained professionals. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the information this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we considered the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 6.8 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

This first-rate facility also excelled in the area of nursing, where it received a grade of A+. Few nursing homes performed better in this area. Our nursing grade is largely based on the facility's nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This facility 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 typically be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

Tallying another strong category grade, this facility also excelled in inspections, where it earned a score of A-. Few nursing homes performed better in this category. Inspection scores weigh several factors included in a nursing home's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we weigh heavily is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better grades in this area tend to have very few of these severe deficiencies. This place was hit with 5 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe deficiencies. This tells you that the inspectors did not deem any of these deficiencies to pose an imminent risk to resident safety or health. A couple minor dings are not necessarily the end of the world.

The last category we graded is long-term care, in which this facility was awarded a grade of B-. This turned out to be this nursing home's weakest category. This is still not a terrible score. For prospective residents seeking a permanent residence as opposed to rehabilitation, long-term care grades are a key measure. Once we concluded our assessment of the quantity of care provided by nurses, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination statistics. We were optimistic to find that this facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents against pneumonia. This nursing home was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. It had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.