Colonial Nursing Center of Rockford

One of the reasons this place received a great overall grade is that it received a very impressive nursing grade. Nursing actually turned out to be its best category. In that area, we gave this nursing home an A. In computing our nursing ratings, we factor in both nursing hours and the levels of licensure of the nurses. This facility provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This nursing home performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a nursing home has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can frequently be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

This facility received a strong short-term care score as well. We awarded it one of our better grades in that area with a score of B+. In the area of short-term care, we endeavor to qualify measures of a facility's rehabilitation. We assess a facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses and physical, occupational and other therapists. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last datapoint we looked at in this category is the number of residents who eventually returned home from the facility. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

In addition, this facility earned a very good government inspection report this year as well. For this reason, it earned one of our better grades in that area with a B. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in determining our inspection ratings. One of those factors is deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of these deficiencies is usually more important than the number of deficiencies, as some deficiencies are quite minor. While this nursing home had a few deficiencies on its inspection report, none of them were severe based on CMS' scale. The fact that none of the deficiencies were severe leaves us less concerned with this inspection report.

The next area we graded was long-term care. We gave this nursing home a C in this area. For residents seeking a permanent residence as opposed to skilled nursing, long-term care grades are a key measure. One of the criteria we considered on top of nursing hours is vaccinations. Thankfully, this facility administered the pneumonia vaccination to 100 percent of its patients. This place was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.