Crosslands

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a quality nursing home is that it received an A+ inspection grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this critical category. Inspection grades are tied to many pieces of information found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that score well in this area typically have very few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these places generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. While this nursing home had a few minor dings on its report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones found in categories G through L. This means CMS didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Another reason we rated this facility so favorably is that it was given an A+ long-term care grade. This is just about as elite as it gets in this category. Long-term care grades of this caliber generally require both 24/7 care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine medical care. Once we assessed the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination records. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients for pneumonia. Vaccines are critical to keeping residents healthy. Finally, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

In addition, this facility received high marks in the area of nursing. As a result, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A+. When calculating a facility's nursing grade, we assess the amount of time nurses are seeing residents as well as the skill levels of the nurses. This nursing home averages 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures and this place excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place the nation in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as employing a system of moving residents more frequently.

Turning to the next category, this nursing home also performed admirably in the short-term care category. We awarded it a grade of A- in that category. This completed a straight A report card. Our short-term care scores are thought to be most critical for those requiring rehabilitation services. Rehabilitation generally utilizes higher levels of highly-skilled nursing services. This means not only nursing, but also physical and respiratory therapy, as well as other variations of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we assessed the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 4.4 percent of this facility's residents returned home.