Edgemont Healthcare

One of the reasons this turned out to be a great nursing home is that it received an A+ inspection grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this very important category. Inspection ratings take several factors into consideration, including deficiencies and substantiated complaints. You can learn more about each of these issues by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. Fortunately, although this place had a few minor dings on its report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those found in categories G through L. This means CMS didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Contributing to its superb profile, this nursing home also performed well in our long-term care area. In fact, it received a grade of A for that area. When nursing homes receive this kind of grade in this category it is typically a good sign for resident care and indicates that the nursing home is well-staffed with nurses and aids. In addition to assessing the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 99.54751 percent of its patients. Vaccines are critical to keeping residents healthy. Clearly, this facility 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 one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This facility is also strong in the area of nursing, where it received a grade of B. It outperformed most nursing homes in this category. The nursing score weighs many components, many of which are associated with quantities of nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures and this nursing home 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 frequently be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as by having a protocol of turning residents even once per day.

The next category we rated was short-term care, where this nursing home received a grade of B. This actually proved to be this facility's worst category. A nursing home is doing something right when their poorest score still outperforms most nursing homes. In the category of short-term care, we strive to evaluate measures of a nursing home's rehabilitation. We analyze the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses and physical and occupational therapists. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. However, based on the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last item we looked at in this category is the number of residents 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.