Covenant Medical Center

To go along with its strong overall grade, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A+ for its nursing grade. When computing our nursing scores, we look at both the number of hours nurses spend with residents and the training levels of those nurses. This place provided 8.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day, which is among the higher totals in the country. A significant portion of those hours were provided by registered nurses, which are one of the more skilled levels of nurses. We are really impressed by these figures. On top of offering impressive levels of nursing care, this nursing home also excelled in the quality measures we looked at. By way of illustration, it performed as well as any nursing home in Michigan in the area of minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers. We view these statistics as predictive indicators of the caliber of nursing care provided.

This facility received quality marks in the category of short-term care. For this reason, it was given one of our most impressive grades in that area with a grade of A+. Our short-term care scores are vital for prospective residents looking for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally mandates higher levels of highly-skilled nursing. Skilled nursing means a wide spectrum of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. One of this nursing home's strengths is registered nurse hours. We found that it offers more care from registered nurses to its residents than most facilities. Finally, we looked at the percentage of patients that ultimately were able to return home from this facility. It fared as well as just about any nursing home in the country with 69.7 percent of its residents returning home.

Turning our third area, we awarded this nursing home a score of A for our long-term care rating. This is a very strong grade. In a long-term care setting, the facility's primary goal is to keep patients as healthy and safe as possible. This is different than skilled nursing or short-term care where the goal is to rehabilitate residents. One of the factors we considered after nursing hours is vaccinations. It does not appear that this facility submitted vaccination data. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Adding to its impressive category grades, this nursing home also excelled in inspections, where it earned a score of A. This wrapped up a straight A report card for this nursing home. Our inspection grades account for several factors included in a nursing home's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we consider is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Nursing homes with higher scores in this area generally have very few severe deficiencies. While this facility had some deficiencies on its government inspection report, none of them were severe based on CMS' scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.