Epsom Healthcare Center

In addition to receiving a great overall grade, this facility performed even better in the area of inspections which is based on the nursing home's recent government inspections. In fact, we awarded it a grade of A+ for that category, which is one of our highest grades. These inspection grades weigh several factors, including deficiencies, substantiated complaints and federal fines. You can learn more about each of these factors by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. While this facility 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 that CMS didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

An additional quality feature for this nursing home is that it was given an above average long-term care score. In fact, this wound up being its second best category grade. In that category, we gave this facility a grade of B+. When nursing homes receive this type of score in long-term care it is a good sign for patient care and suggests that the place is well-staffed with nurses and aids. Once we concluded our assessment of the volume of nursing care, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination record. This nursing home vaccinated 96.01227 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is very impressive. Pneumonia is often a life threatening illness for nursing home residents so we prefer when a nursing home doesn't leave its residents vulnerable. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

This facility's next best category was its nursing grade, where it received a grade of C. While this didn't quite match its scores in some of the categories discussed above, this is still a decent score. Nursing grades are largely based on a facility's nurse staffing. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident each day. This is a relatively low total compared to most other nursing homes. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this place surprisingly fared better in some of the quality-based metrics we assessed. In fact, it scored well in the area of minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers.

The next category we rated is short-term care. This nursing home received a C for the category. In crafting these short-term care scores, we analyze the facility's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The objective is to create a measure for comparing the rehabilitation services of different facilities. Fortunately, it looks like 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. Lastly, we looked at the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 4.3 percent of this facility's patients returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their residents are able to return home so this figure is below average.