Crestpark Helena

In addition to a phenomenal overall grade, this facility also received A+ nursing grade. Our nursing rating assesses the facility's nurse staffing levels. We consider both the levels of training of those nurses and the number of hours spent with patients. This nursing home provides 0.6 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This facility performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a nursing home has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can many times be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

This nursing home also was elite in the area of short-term care, where it received a score of A-. Only a select group of nursing homes performed better in this category. Our short-term care ratings are meaningful for patients looking for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually requires higher levels of highly-skilled nursing. Skilled nursing means a vast spectrum of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. However, based on the data they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we assessed the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

Tallying yet another strong category grade, this facility also excelled in the area of inspections, where it received an impressive grade of A-. Few facilities fared better in this area. Our inspection ratings are tied to several pieces of information located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes that receive favorable grades in this category typically have very few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these nursing homes should not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. This nursing home was hit with 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be severe deficiencies. This tells you that the inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies an immediate threat to patient health or safety. Keep in mind that deficiency-free inspections are rare in this industry.

The last area we looked at ended up being this nursing home's weakest area. Nevertheless, even its worst category would likely be a highlight for most facilities. In fact, we awarded it a favorable grade of B for long-term care. Nursing homes that do well in long-term care tend to provide residents with closer supervision and stay on top of routine healthcare services. Once we assessed the volume of nursing care, we then looked at the facility's vaccination data. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia sadly is often a deadly condition for nursing home patients so we like it when a nursing home does not take any chances. Finally, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.