Caretel Inns of Tri-Cities

Located in Bay City, Michigan, Caretel Inns of Tri-Cities is one of four nursing homes in this city. This is a quality facility with a grade of B+ overall. We were pleased to learn that many of the other facilities in Bay City received similar grades. This place definitely has plenty going for it. This facility is better in some categories than others, but it did not have any bad scores in any of the four major categories. More information about these categories can be found below.

On top of earning a great overall score, this nursing home also received an A+ in short-term care. In the category of short-term care, we attempt to evaluate measures of a facility's rehabilitation. We assess the facility's skilled nursing services, such as the ones performed by registered nurses and physical therapists. This facility excelled at the highest level in the two key staffing areas we looked at. It offered about 50% more care from physical therapists and registered nurses than the average nursing home. This is an excellent sign. Finally, we looked at the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that it outperformed the vast majority of nursing homes in the country in this area with 62.7 percent of its residents returning home. This is a significantly higher rate than most nursing homes.

This nursing home performed well in our nursing category. In fact, we awarded it a grade of A for that category, which is one of our highest scores. Nursing scores are primarily based on the nursing home's nurse staffing. This facility provided 5.2 hours of nursing care per patient per day. This was one of the better figures we found. In addition, we found that a significant portion of this care was provided by registered nurses, which are highly skilled nurses. These are both really impressive figures. In addition to offering high levels of nursing care, this nursing home also excelled in the quality measures we assessed. For example, it performed as well as any nursing home in Michigan when it comes to avoiding major falls and pressure ulcers. We view these datapoints as good indicators of the caliber of nursing care provided.

Adding to its impressive category grades, we awarded this nursing home a grade of B+ for our inspections rating. Inspection ratings weigh several factors included in a facility's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we rely on is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with higher grades in this category typically have few of these severe deficiencies. While this facility had a few minor dings on its report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are labeled as categories G through L. This means CMS didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Keep in mind that deficiency-free inspection reports are rare in this industry.

The last category we graded is long-term care, in which this nursing home was given a C. This proved to be this facility's worst category. This is still not a major area of concern. In the area of long-term care, we focus more on the amount of services offered by a nursing home, as opposed to more sophisticated services. On top of considering the volume of care provided by nurses and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. We were not able to find this place's vaccination data. Finally, this place excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.