Concordia at the Cedars

On top of being a strong nursing home overall, this place really excelled in the area of inspections, where it received an A-. Few nursing homes fared better in that area. Our inspection grades are based on many pieces of information located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that excel in this area typically have very few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these nursing homes generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. Fortunately, although this facility had a few minor dings on its report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means the government inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Keep in mind that deficiency-free inspections are uncommon in the industry.

Among this nursing home's other accomplishments is its high-end short-term care score. It received one of our best scores in that category, with a score of A-. In computing our short-term care scores, we look at the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. Our purpose is to create a scale for sizing up the rehabilitation services of different nursing homes. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the information this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last statistic we assessed in this area is the number of residents that eventually returned home from the nursing home. We found that 6.1 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

The next highest grade we gave this nursing home came in the category of nursing, where we gave it a grade of C. This wasn't quite as good as some of its other scores, but a grade in this range is not the end of the world. In computing a nursing home's nursing grade, we assess the quantity of hours nurses are seeing residents as well as the level of licensure of those nurses. This nursing home averages just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low figure. Lastly, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based metrics, such as avoiding major falls. Despite not having the most impressive total nursing hours, this facility actually performed admirably in the metric of preventing major falls. This is typically a good indicator that a place has quality controls in place. Many falls can be avoided if a nursing home provides enough nurses aids to assist its residents.

The last category we graded was long-term care. We gave it a grade of C in that category. This is not a bad grade in this area. For residents seeking a permanent residence rather than skilled nursing, long-term care is a very important category. After considering the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we next considered the facility's vaccination record. We were pleased to find that this nursing home vaccinated 98.6755 percent of its residents for pneumonia. Finally, this nursing home was also able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.