Delaware Veterans Home

We also wanted to emphasize the fact that this nursing home excelled in our nursing rating. We awarded them an A+ in this area. In computing a facility's nursing rating, we weigh the number of hours nurses are caring for patients and 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 facility 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 state in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by having a policy of turning patients even once per day.

This nursing home also was given a very strong short-term care score. Indeed, this is its second most impressive category grade. In that area, we gave this facility a score of A-. Our short-term care grades are believed to be more important for those requiring a nursing home for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally utilizes more skilled nursing. This means not merely nursing, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we considered the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home.

This facility also earned top notch government inspections in recent years. We gave them one of our better scores in that area, with an impressive grade of B+. Perhaps the most critical factor we look at in computing our inspection ratings is deficiencies. Deficiencies can be found on a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Facilities with better scores in this category typically avoided the most severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. While this place had a few minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones labeled as categories G through L. This tells you CMS didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. A couple minor dings are not necessarily something to panic about.

The next area we analyzed was this facility's worst category. However, even its worst category would actually be a highlight for most nursing homes. We awarded it a favorable grade of B in our long-term care category. When facilities receive this type of score in long-term care it is typically a good sign for patient care and indicates that the nursing home is well-staffed with nurses and aids. In addition to considering the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 99.51923 percent of its residents, which is significantly higher than the average nursing home. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.