Downs Care & Rehabilitation Center

On top of a strong overall score, this nursing home also earned an impressive short-term care grade. We gave them one of our better grades in that category, with a grade of B+. In calculating these short-term care ratings, we analyze the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. The goal is to formulate a scale for comparing the rehabilitation services of nursing homes. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all facilities employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final metric we assessed in this area is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We discovered that 0 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home.

One of the other reasons we rated this facility so highly is that it received a very impressive nursing rating. Nursing proved to be its second best category grade. In that category, we awarded this nursing home a grade of B+. The nursing rating includes a handful of subcategories, but the primary one is the level of nurse hours per patient per week. This particular nursing home provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics 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 country in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as by employing a system of moving patients even once per day.

Furthermore, this nursing home also received impressive inspections in recent years. We awarded them one of our higher grades in that category, with a B. Perhaps the most significant factor we look at in calculating our inspection scores is deficiencies. These deficiencies can be found on a facility's inspection reports. Nursing homes with higher scores in this area most likely dodged the most severe deficiencies involving health risks or even 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.

The last category we assessed was long-term care, where this facility was given a B. This facility did not turn out to have any real weaknesses. Nursing homes that receive this type of grade in this category tend to provide consistent 24/7 care to ensure patients are well cared for. One of the data points we considered on top of nurse's aid hours is vaccines. This facility administered the pneumonia vaccination to 96.92307 percent of its patients. Vaccination is a proven method to avoid unnecessary deaths and hospitalizations for the nursing home population. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it 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 figure.