Community Care of Rutherford

On top of performing well in its overall grade, this nursing home performed at an even higher level in the area of inspections. In fact, it received a nearly flawless inspection report this year. As a result, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A+. Inspection grades weigh a host of factors included in a nursing home's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we rely on is the number and severity of deficiencies. Places with better grades in this category tend to have few of these severe deficiencies. Although this facility had some deficiencies on its inspection report, none of them were severe based on CMS' deficiency scale. We should point out that deficiency-free inspection reports are rare in the industry.

One of the other reasons we rated this facility so highly is that it received a very impressive nursing score. This proved to be its second best category grade. In that area, we gave this nursing home a grade of B+. Our nursing rating includes several components, many of which are based on levels of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 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 place has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can often be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

In addition, this facility also was awarded favorable long-term care scores in our assessment. In fact, we gave it one of our higher grades in that category, with a score of B. Long-term care grades in this range generally require both 24/7 care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine medical care. Once we assessed the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination data. This nursing home vaccinated 98.27586 percent of its residents against pneumonia. Vaccines are vital to keeping residents out of the hospital. 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 only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Switching gears to the fourth category, this nursing home was given a C for short-term care, which we consider to be an acceptable rating. Our short-term care grades are crucial for prospective residents in need of rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally requires additional highly-skilled nursing. Skilled nursing means a broad scope of services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we considered the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 4.6 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most nursing homes, closer to half of their patients are able to return home so this figure is below average.