Covenant Living at the Shores

In addition to being a strong facility overall, this nursing home also excelled in the category of short-term care, where it received an A+. Few facilities fared better in this category. With our short-term care category, we endeavor to forge a meaningful measure for rehabilitation services. In doing so, we look at a nursing home's levels of highly-skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as speech therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Finally, we assessed the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 7.5 percent of this facility's residents returned home.

One of the other reasons we rated this nursing home so highly is that it received a very impressive nursing score. Nursing proved to be its second best category grade. In that area, we gave this nursing home an A-. Nursing grades are based largely on nurse staffing levels. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics and this facility excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any facility Washington in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as employing a protocol of turning residents more often.

This nursing home also fared very well in the category of long-term care, where we awarded it a score of A-. Not many nursing homes fared better in this category. When facilities receive a grade in this range in long-term care it generally means it's well-staffed and is a quality place to reside on a permanent basis. Once we looked at the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we then analyzed the nursing home's vaccination data. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its residents for pneumonia. Vaccines are critical to keeping patients healthy. Lastly, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Lastly, we also wanted to draw your attention to this nursing home's nearly flawless government inspections. We awarded them an impressive grade of B+ in this category. This wraps up a very strong report card. Inspection scores weigh a host of factors found on a facility's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we look at is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Nursing homes with higher scores in this area generally have very few of these severe deficiencies. Fortunately, although this place had some minor dings on its inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means that CMS didn't deem 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.