Clairidge House

Although we didn't rate this facility favorably overall, we actually gave it an excellent score in the category of inspections, where it earned a grade of A-. Inspection scores weigh a host of factors included in a facility's inspection report. One key criteria we consider is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. You generally want to avoid places with too many severe deficiencies flagged. This nursing home received 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be severe. This tells you that the government inspectors didn't deem any of these deficiencies an immediate threat to resident safety or health. A few minor deficiencies are not the end of the world.

We awarded this facility just a D for our short-term care rating and that actually turned out to be its second highest category. In the category of short-term care, we endeavor to evaluate indicators of a facility's rehabilitation services. We analyze a nursing home's skilled nursing services, including the ones performed by registered nurses and physical and occupational therapists. Considering its poor score in this category, we weren't surprised to find this facility provides far fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than most facilities. The final metric we considered in this category is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We discovered that just 0 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home, which is well below average. The combination of these subpar metrics sunk this nursing home's short-term care score.

We were stunned to find that this nursing home also excelled in the category of nursing. We gave it a grade of D for that category, which is one of our highest scores. We assessed the qualifications of nurses working for the facility, as well as the number of hours the nurses worked with residents, in determining our grade in this area. This facility offered only 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident on a daily basis. This is a very low total compared to most nursing homes. Lastly, we also looked at some nursing quality measures in determining our nursing grades. This nursing home performed well in terms of minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

The final category we analyzed is long-term care, where this facility was given a bottom of the barrel grade here as well. We gave it an F in this area, which is obviously a major concern. Nursing homes that receive this type of score in this category likely don't provide the type of consistent 24/7 care that some other facilities provide. On top of assessing the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. Candidly, we were a bit alarmed this nursing home administered the vaccine to only 83.435585 percent of its patients. To our surprise, this nursing home was actually decent at keeping its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days. This was its best score in this category.