Crystal Ridge Care Center

To go along with its favorable overall score, we awarded this facility an A- for the area of inspections. Perhaps the most critical factor we look at in computing our inspection scores is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a facility's inspection reports. Nursing homes with higher grades in this category typically dodged the most severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. This nursing home was hit with 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe. This indicates that the inspectors did not deem any of these deficiencies to cause an immediate risk to resident safety or health. We should note that deficiency-free inspection reports are uncommon in this industry.

An additional quality feature for this facility is that it was given a very positive short-term care score. Indeed, this turned out to be its second best category score. In that category, we awarded this nursing home a grade of B. Our short-term care grades are based in part on a nursing home's quantity of highly-skilled skilled healthcare professionals. This means a vast spectrum of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, in addition to other forms of therapy. Unfortunately, it does not look like this nursing home provided information on registered nurse or physical therapist staffing. The final item we assessed in this area is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We found that 6.3 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

The next best area we gave this nursing home in any category came in the category of long-term care, where we awarded it a grade of B-. Our long-term care scores are more important for those in need of more traditional assistance related to personal care. On top of assessing the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 96.42857 percent of its residents, which is more than most nursing homes. This place also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

Switching gears to our next category, this facility was given a grade of C for nursing, which is a decent grade. When computing a nursing home's nursing score, we look at the number of hours nurses are caring for residents as well as the level of licensure of the nurses. This nursing home averages just 0.4 hours of nursing care per patient per day, which is not an impressive total. Lastly, we also looked at some nursing quality-based metrics. Although this facility got docked a bit for nursing hours, it actually excelled in a few of these quality-based metrics. With fewer than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it did very well in this area. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can typically be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as by employing a policy of turning patients at least once a day.