Cedar Crest Manor

This nursing home received a strong overall score as described above, but we especially wanted to point out its nearly flawless government inspections in recent years. We gave them an A+ in this category. Inspection grades account for a host of factors included in a facility's inspection reports. One key criteria we look at is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Nursing homes with higher scores in this category generally have very few severe deficiencies. Although this facility had some deficiencies on its government inspection report, none of them were serious based on CMS' scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This facility truly excelled in the category of long-term care, where we gave it a grade of A. Not many nursing homes performed more favorably in this category. Long-term care grades of this caliber generally require both 24/7 care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine healthcare services. On top of looking at the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility provided the vaccine to 97.8903 percent of its residents, which is far higher than the vast majority of nursing homes. Lastly, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

Turning to the area of nursing care, this was not one of this facility's strong suits. We awarded it a grade of D in this category. Clearly, this facility performed much better in the categories discussed above. In calculating our nursing scores, we look at both the number of hours nurses spend with residents and the skill levels of the nurses. This place offered only 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident daily. This is not a very impressive figure. Lastly, we also looked at some nursing quality-based metrics in determining our nursing ratings. This place fared well in the area of minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers. Many consider these datapoints to be measures of the quality of nursing care.

The next area we graded was short-term care. Unfortunately, we gave it an abysmal F for this category, which is a poor score. We would not necessarily rule out a nursing home because of one weak grade though. Short-term care grades are crucial for prospective residents seeking rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically utilizes more skilled nursing. This includes a broad range of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other types of therapy. It appears that this nursing home was below average in two of the key staffing areas we focus on. In fact, it offered fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other facilities. Finally, we considered the percentage of residents that ultimately returned home from this nursing home. This facility didn't fare well here either. In fact, we found that just 4.1 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home. This figure was quite a bit off the national average.