Edgewater, a Wesleylife Community

To go along with its strong overall performance, we gave this facility an A for the area of inspections. Arguably the most critical factor we look at in determining our inspection grades is deficiencies. These deficiencies can be found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Places with higher grades in this area typically avoided the more severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. This nursing home was hit with 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none were considered to be severe. This indicates that the inspectors did not deem any of these deficiencies to create an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Keep in mind that deficiency-free inspection reports are rare in this industry.

We also gave this facility a score of A for our short-term care score. In calculating these short-term care ratings, we analyze the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. Our goal is to devise a barometer for sizing up the rehabilitation services of different nursing homes. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last measure we considered in this area is the percentage of patients who were able to return home from the facility. We found that 6.1 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

Another strong feature for this facility is that it received an impressive nursing grade. In that area, we awarded this facility a grade of B+. Nursing grades are tied to quantity of nursing care available. This nursing home provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics 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 nursing home the state in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as employing a protocol of turning a patient more often.

The final category we looked at turned out to be this nursing home's worst area. Nevertheless, even in its weakest link we still awarded it a decent grade of C in our long-term care category. Our long-term care ratings are more critical for folks needing more traditional assistance related to personal care. In addition to assessing the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home provided the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is more than most nursing homes. This facility keeps its patients out of the hospital. It had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.