Delmar Gardens of Creve Coeur

We want to draw your attention to the fact that this facility outperformed its overall score in the category of inspections. In fact, it received an excellent inspection report this year. As a result, it received one of our highest scores in this category with an A. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in calculating these inspection grades. One key factor is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of deficiencies is usually more important than the quantity of deficiencies, as some end up being quite minor. While this place had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones found in categories G through L. This tells you that CMS didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Remember that deficiency-free inspection reports are rare in the industry.

We also gave this facility a favorable score in long-term care. This nursing home received a grade of B in this category, which turns out to be one of our higher grades. Long-term care scores of this caliber generally require both 24/7 care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine healthcare services. After considering the volume of care provided by nurses and other staff, we then analyzed the nursing home's vaccination records. This nursing home vaccinated 97.24518 percent of its residents against pneumonia, which is far higher than most nursing homes. Finally, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

This facilities next most favorable area is short-term care. We gave it a grade of B- in this area. This is basically a middle of the pack grade in this area. Short-term care grades are often employed to assess a facility's performance with rehabilitation To have good rehabilitation services, facilities generally need to provide higher levels of skilled nursing. These types of services include registered nurses, physical therapists, respiratory therapists and other highly skilled individuals. It does not look like this nursing home submitted registered nurse or physical therapist staffing data. Finally, we considered the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 6 percent of this facility's patients returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their patients are able to return home so this figure is below average.

This nursing home's worst category was nursing, which is the final area we assessed. Sadly, it received a lowly F in this category. Despite multiple decent scores in other areas, this grade is nevertheless disappointing so we wanted to make sure you are aware. Our nursing score assesses the facility's nurse staffing levels. We factor in both the levels of training of the nurses and the quantity of hours spent with residents. This place offered a meager 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident on a daily basis. This is not a very impressive figure. In addition to receiving below average scores for total nursing hours, this facility was less impressive in some of the quality-based measures we looked at in calculating our nursing grades. We looked at the percentage of patients suffering pressure ulcers and found that this nursing home was at roughly 1.5 times the national average in this metric. This is likely a bad sign when you consider that many bed sores are believed to be preventable with better nursing care. Unfortunately, this statistic dragged down this facility's nursing rating substantially.