Eddy Memorial Geriatric Center

On top of performing well in its overall grade, this nursing home performed at an even higher level in the area of inspections. In fact, it received a nearly flawless inspection report this year. As a result, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A. Perhaps the most critical factor we look at in calculating our inspection ratings is deficiencies. Deficiencies are found on a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places with better scores in this category typically avoided the most severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. Fortunately, although this nursing home had some minor dings on its inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you the inspectors didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. The fact that the deficiencies were relatively minor made us feel better about this inspection report.

Adding to its profile, this nursing home also earned a score of B for its long-term care rating. This is an above average grade in this area. Long-term care scores of this caliber generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine healthcare services. On top of assessing the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home provided the vaccine to 99.63503 percent of its patients, which is far higher than the vast majority of nursing homes. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

We also gave this facility a decent score in the area of short-term care, where we awarded it a grade of B-. In determining our short-term care grades, we scrutinize the nursing home's levels of highly skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists respiratory therapists and other highly trained professionals. This rating is more often than not a reliable measure of a facility's ability to rehabilitate patients. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that this nursing home submitted registered nurse or physical therapist staffing data. Lastly, we considered the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 0 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.

The final area we looked at is nursing. We awarded this nursing home a B- in this category. When calculating a facility's nursing score, we consider the number of hours nurses commit to patients and the level of skill of those nurses. This place averages just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident on a daily basis, which is a very low figure. Finally, we look at quality-based metrics, such as the percent of patients who experienced pressure ulcers and major falls. Sometimes these metrics are measures of the quality of nursing care.