Edgewood Estates

In addition to faring well overall, this facility received a nearly flawless inspection report. Therefore, it received one of our best scores in that area with an A+. Our inspection ratings account for several factors included in a nursing home's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we weigh heavily is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better scores in this area usually have few of these severe deficiencies. Fortunately, although this place had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those found in categories G through L. This means the government inspectors did not 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.

Among this nursing home's other strengths is its high-end long-term care grade. We awarded them one of our more favorable grades in that area, with a grade of A-. Facilities that receive this type of score in this category typically provide consistent 24/7 care to make sure residents are kept in good health. In addition to considering the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility provided the vaccine to 98.75 percent of its residents, which is much higher than the majority of nursing homes. Lastly, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This facility's next best category was its nursing grade, where it received a grade of B-. While this didn't quite match its scores in some of the categories discussed above, this is still a decent score. Our nursing score focuses on the facility's nurse staffing levels. We factor in both the levels of licensure of the nurses and the amount of time spent with residents. This particular facility provided just 0.4 hours of nursing care per patient per day. This figure is significantly below average. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this nursing home actually fared better in some of the quality measures we assessed. In fact, it scored well when it comes to avoiding major falls and pressure ulcers. We consider these areas to be reliable measures of the quality of nursing care. In many cases, the quality of nursing care is as important as the quantity of hours of care provided.

The last area we scored was short-term care, where this facility was given a grade of B-. This actually proved to be this facility's weakest area. This is nevertheless a middle of the pack score. Our short-term care grade is commonly employed to grade a nursing home's rehabilitation services. To offer high-end rehabilitation services, facilities generally must offer better levels of highly skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, respiratory therapists and other licensed professionals. Unfortunately, we weren't able to locate information on registered nurse or physical therapy staffing for this nursing home. The last measure we assessed in this category is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return home. We discovered that just 0 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home, which is actually below average.