Elderwood at Riverside

This nursing home earned a strong overall grade as described above, but we especially wanted to emphasize its excellent nursing score. We awarded them a grade of A- in this area. Our nursing grade includes several subcategories, many of which are based on levels of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures and this place 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 state in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as employing a policy of turning a patient more frequently.

One of the other reasons we graded this facility so highly is that it was given a strong long-term care grade. In fact, long-term care turned out to be its second highest category grade. In that area, we awarded this facility a score of A-. For prospective patients in need of a permanent residence as opposed to skilled nursing, long-term care grades are a key measure. In addition to considering the volume of care provided by nurses and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home administered the vaccine to 86.84211 percent of its residents, which is somewhat below what we anticipated. While its vaccination rate was a bit lower than we like to see, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

Additionally, this nursing home also received favorable short-term care scores this year. In fact, we awarded them one of our more favorable grades in that area, with a grade of B+. Our short-term care ratings are likely most critical for folks requiring rehabilitation services. Rehabilitation typically utilizes higher levels of skilled nursing. This includes not only nursing, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other types of therapy. We were not able to locate information about this nursing home's registered nurse or physical therapy staffing. The final item we assessed in this category is the number of patients who were able to leave the facility and return home. We found that 5.6 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home.

Lastly, we also found that this facility has earned favorable inspections in recent years. We awarded it a B- in this category. These inspection scores take several factors into consideration, including deficiencies, substantiated complaints and federal fines. You can learn more about each of these items by reviewing copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. While this facility had some minor dings on its report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means that CMS did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Remember that deficiency-free inspection reports are rare in the industry.