Door County Medical Center Skilled Nursing Facility

In addition to being a first rate nursing home overall, this nursing home performed well in our inspections category, where it earned a grade of A+. Very few places performed as well in this area. Our inspection ratings account for a host of factors included in a facility's inspection reports. One key criteria we weigh heavily is the number and severity of deficiencies. Places with higher scores in this area usually have very few severe deficiencies. Although this facility had some deficiencies on its government inspection report, none of them were severe based on CMS' scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Another reason we assessed this facility so highly is that it was given an A+ long-term care score. This is just about as strong as it gets in this area. Nursing homes that do well in long-term care typically are well-staffed and offer extensive hands on care to residents. On top of looking at the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is much higher than the average nursing home. Finally, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

Contributing to its strong assessment, this facility also received a strong short-term care grade, with a grade of A. In determining our short-term care scores, we look at a nursing home's levels of skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists occupational therapists and other types of therapists. This score is more often than not a meaningful assessment of a facility's ability to rehabilitate patients. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. However, according to the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final datapoint we considered in this category is the number of patients who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We found that 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home.

In the last category we analyzed, this nursing home was given an impressive grade grade of A- in our nursing category. With this grade, the nursing home rounded out a straight A report card. Our nursing grade is mostly associated with a facility's nurse staffing. This facility provided 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also factored a few quality measures into our nursing grades. This place was relatively weak in two of the major areas we focus on, with below average scores for minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers. These areas are generally reliable indicators of the quality of nursing care provided.