Carrara

This nursing home earned a solid overall grade as described above, but we really wanted to point out its excellent health inspections in recent years. We gave them an A+ in this category. Our inspection ratings account for a host of factors included in a facility's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we look at is the number and severity of deficiencies. Places with better scores in this category tend to have very few of these severe deficiencies. This nursing home received 2 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be severe. This tells you that CMS did not consider any of the deficiencies to pose an immediate risk to resident health or safety. A couple of minor deficiencies should not stop you from considering a nursing home.

This nursing home was given its next most favorable category grade in the category of short-term care. We gave this facility a grade of C in this category, which is an acceptable score. Our short-term care grades are probably most meaningful for people needing rehabilitation services. Rehabilitation usually utilizes more highly-skilled nursing services. This means not merely nursing services, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other variations of therapy. We were surprised to find that this place was below average in the two key staffing areas we assessed. The facility offered fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other facilities. It is important to determine whether this is adversely impacting the quality of care. The final datapoint we looked at in this area is the number of patients that ultimately returned home from the facility. We found that just 5.3 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home.

This nursing home's third highest area came in the area of long-term care. In that area, we awarded this facility a grade of C. For prospective patients looking for a permanent place to live rather than skilled nursing, long-term care grades are an important measure. In addition to looking at the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is more than the average nursing home. Lastly, this place was also able to limit hospitalizations. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

The next category we assessed is nursing, which is this facility's least impressive area. It received an abysmal F in this area, which is obviously concerning. We analyzed the qualifications of nurses working for the facility, in addition to the quantity of hours the nurses were with patients, in calculating our grade in this category. With just 0.3 hours of nursing care per patient daily, this facility's nurse staffing levels were significantly below the national average. Finally, we also assessed some nursing quality-based metrics in determining our nursing scores. This nursing home fared well when it comes to minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls.