Colonial Health Care

In addition to being a great overall grade, this facility also received A+ health inspections in recent years. Its inspections were virtually flawless. Inspection grades weigh a host of factors found on a facility's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we rely on is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with higher grades in this category typically have few severe deficiencies. This nursing home was assessed 5 deficiencies on its inspection report, but fortunately none were considered to be major deficiencies. This indicates that CMS did not deem any of the deficiencies an imminent threat to resident safety or health. Remember that deficiency-free inspections are rare in the industry.

This nursing home also received a high-end short-term care score. Indeed, this is its second best category score. In that category, we gave this facility a score of A-. In the category of short-term care, we try to evaluate measures of a facility's rehabilitation services. We look at a nursing home's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses and physical therapists. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like this facility submitted data regarding its registered nurse or physical therapy staffing. The final measure we assessed in this category is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We discovered that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home.

Adding to its profile, this facility also earned a grade of B+ for its nursing rating. This is a well above average score in this category. Our nursing rating focuses on the nursing home's nurse staffing levels. We consider both the levels of licensure of the nurses as well as the quantity of hours spent with patients. This nursing home averages 0 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures and this place excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place the nation in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by employing a system of moving patients more often.

The final category we scored was long-term care, where this nursing home was given a B+. This finished off a very strong report card. Only a select few nursing homes earned a B+ or higher in every category. Long-term care grades of this caliber generally require both 24/7 care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine medical care. After considering the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination data. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents against pneumonia, which is far higher than the vast majority of nursing homes. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.