Colonial Nursing Home

This nursing home received a strong overall grade as described above, but we especially would like to emphasize its nearly flawless government inspections in recent years. We awarded it an impressive grade of A+ in this area. Perhaps the most critical factor we look at in computing our inspection grades is deficiencies. Deficiencies can be found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Places with higher grades in this area typically dodged the more severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. We weren't able to track down deficiency data for this facility. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This facility was awarded high scores in the area of long-term care as well. As a result, we gave it one of our most elite scores in that area with a area of A. Facilities that excel in this category tend to provide residents with better supervision and stay on top of routine healthcare services. After considering the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we next considered the facility's vaccination records. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients against pneumonia. Vaccines are vital to keeping patients healthy. Lastly, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This facilities third best category is short-term care. We gave it a C in this category. This is essentially a middle of the pack score in this area. Our short-term care grades are arguably more critical for people needing a nursing home for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically requires higher levels of highly-skilled nursing services. This includes not only nursing, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other types of therapy. We weren't able to track down information on registered nurse or physical therapy staffing for this nursing home. Finally, we looked at the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 0 percent of this facility's patients returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their residents are able to return home so this figure is below average.

The final area we looked at was nursing, is this nursing home's weakest area. We awarded this facility a D in this area. This really is one of just a few weak points in an otherwise strong profile. The nursing score is based on numerous subcategories. The most important variable is the quantity of hours nurses spend with residents. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low total compared to most nursing homes. Finally, we also assessed some nursing quality-based metrics in calculating our nursing ratings. This facility fared well when it comes to avoiding major falls and pressure ulcers.