Edgemont Healthcare

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a quality nursing home is that it received an A+ inspection grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this critical category. Arguably the most critical factor we consider in determining our inspection scores is deficiencies. These deficiencies can be found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Facilities with better scores in this area typically avoided the more severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. While this nursing home had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are found in categories G through L. This tells you the inspectors did not deem 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.

Another one of this facility's above average category scores came in the category of long-term care. We awarded them one of our stronger scores in that category, with a score of B+. When nursing homes receive this type of score in this category it is a good sign for resident care and indicates that the nursing home is well-staffed with nurses and aids. One of the factors we considered on top of nursing hours is vaccinations. This nursing home administered the pneumonia vaccination to 97.89916 percent of its patients. Vaccination is a reliable method to avoid unnecessary deaths for the elderly population. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

In addition, this facility also was given favorable short-term care grades in our assessment. Indeed, we gave them one of our higher scores in that category, with a grade of B. Our short-term care ratings are critical for residents requiring rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally requires additional highly-skilled nursing services. This includes a broad spectrum of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. 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. Finally, we assessed the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home.

The final area we graded is nursing. In that area, we gave this nursing home an acceptable grade of C. This proved to be this nursing home's weakest area. We assessed the qualifications of nurses employed by the facility, as well as the quantity of time those nurses spent with patients, in calculating our rating in this category. This nursing home averages just 0.2 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low figure. Lastly, we also assessed some nursing quality-based metrics. While this facility got dinged a bit for its nursing hours per resident, it actually excelled in a few of these quality measures. With less than five percent of its patients sustaining pressure ulcers, it fared well in this area. This is generally an indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as employing a protocol of moving residents more often.