Crestpark Helena

On top of earning a great overall score, this facility also received an elite nursing grade. We awarded them one of our better scores in that area, with an A-. Our nursing grade focuses on the facility's nurse staffing levels. We consider both the levels of licensure of those nurses and the quantity of hours spent with residents. This nursing home provides 0.5 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 facility has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can typically be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

In addition, this nursing home also performed well in our inspection category, which is based on the facility's government inspections. We gave it an A- for that category, which is one of our top scores. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in calculating these inspection ratings. One key factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some can be quite minor. This nursing home was assessed 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none were considered to be major deficiencies. This indicates that CMS did not deem any of these deficiencies to cause an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Remember that deficiency-free inspection reports are rare in the industry.

This nursing home is also above average in the area of short-term care, where it received a score of B+. It performed better than most nursing homes in this area. In the category of short-term care, we endeavor to assess measures of a nursing home's rehabilitation services. We assess the facility's skilled nursing services, such as the ones performed by registered nurses and physical, occupational and other therapists. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final item we assessed in this category is the number of residents who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

The next area we assessed was long-term care. This facility was awarded an impressive long-term care rating this year, with a B. This nursing home really does not have any weak links. Nursing homes that excel in long-term care typically are well-staffed and offer extensive hands on care to residents. After considering the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination data. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients for pneumonia. Vaccines are critical to keeping residents healthy. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.