Delaware Court Health Care Center

This facility earned a solid overall grade as described above, but we really wanted to emphasize its excellent government inspections in recent years. We gave them an impressive grade of A+ in this category. Arguably the most critical factor we look at in determining our inspection scores is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Facilities with better scores in this category most likely dodged the most severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Even some of the best nursing homes receive an occasional ding on their inspection report.

This facility's second best category was its nursing grade, where it received a grade of B-. There are many datapoints included in this area. Many of the subcategories relate to levels of nurse staffing. This facility averages 0.3 hours of nursing care per patient each day, which is not an impressive total. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this nursing home surprisingly fared better in some of the quality measures we looked at. It scored well when it comes to avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be indicators of the quality of nursing care. In many cases, the quality of nursing care is as important as the quantity of hours of care provided.

This nursing home's third best area was long-term care. We gave it a B- in this category. This is essentially a middle of the road grade in this category. In the area of long-term care, we analyze the quantity of care provided by a nursing home, rather than more medically-intensive services. One of the factors we considered on top of nurse's aid hours is vaccines. Thankfully, this facility provided the pneumonia vaccine to 99.333336 percent of its residents. Finally, this nursing home was also able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

Moving on to our next area, this nursing home received a grade of C in short-term care, which is an acceptable rating. In the area of short-term care, we endeavor to evaluate measures of a facility's rehabilitation. We look at a nursing home's skilled nursing services, including the ones performed by registered nurses and physical and occupational therapists. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we considered the percentage of patients that eventually returned home from this facility. We found that 5.2 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home. This figure was actually quite a bit below the national average.