Elizabeth Scott Community

To go along with its strong overall grade, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A+ for our inspections rating. These inspection grades take several factors into consideration, including deficiencies and substantiated complaints. You can learn more about each of these factors by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Even some of the best nursing homes receive an occasional ding on their inspection report.

We also wanted to emphasize the fact that this facility excelled in our nursing rating. We awarded them an impressive grade of A+ in this category. Nursing ratings are largely based on a nursing home's nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed 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 facility the country in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by employing a policy of turning residents even once per day.

Moving on our next area, this nursing home received a strong short-term care grade. In fact, it received a score of A in this category. In determining these short-term care scores, we assess the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, speech therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. Our objective is to create a scale for sizing up the rehabilitation services of nursing homes. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last statistic we assessed in this area is the number of patients that ultimately returned home from the facility. We found that 5.7 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

The next category we analyzed is long-term care. In this category, we awarded this nursing home a strong grade of B. Nursing homes that excel in long-term care typically provide patients with closer supervision and stay on top of routine healthcare services. On top of considering the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home gave the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents. Vaccines are vital to keeping patients healthy. Lastly, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.