Colorado State Veterans Home at Fitzsimons

We also wanted to emphasize the fact that this facility excelled in our nursing rating. We awarded them an impressive grade of A+ in this category. The nursing score includes several subcategories, however, the paramount consideration is the level of nurse hours per patient per week. This particular nursing home provided 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics 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 nursing home Colorado in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can typically be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as by having a policy of turning a patient at least once a day.

We also wanted to note the fact that this facility received an elite grade of A in our long-term care category. In a long-term care environment, the nursing home's primary objective is to maintain residents' quality of life and keep them safe. Once we finished looking at the volume of care provided by nurses, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination statistics. This facility vaccinated 93.15353 percent of its patients against pneumonia. Lastly, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

This nursing home has received near flawless government inspections in recent years. We gave them an impressive grade of A in this area. Arguably the most significant factor we consider in computing our inspection scores is deficiencies. Deficiencies are found on a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes with better scores in this area most likely dodged the more severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. Fortunately, although this place had some minor dings on its report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are labeled as categories G through L. This tells you the government inspectors didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

In the final area, this facility also was awarded an impressive short-term care score, with an A. This rounded out a very favorable report card. Short-term care grades are generally employed to measure a facility's rehabilitation services. To have highly scored rehabilitation services, facilities generally need to feature better levels of highly skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, respiratory therapists and other types of therapists. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. However, according to the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last measure we assessed in this category is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients were able to return home.