Evenglow Lodge

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a great nursing home is that it received an A+ nursing grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this category. When calculating a nursing home's nursing score, we consider the quantity of hours nurses are seeing patients and the level of skill of the nurses. This nursing home averages 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality measures 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 nation in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as having a system of moving a patient at least once a day.

Adding to an already impressive profile, this facility also received virtually flawless health inspections in recent years. As a result, we awarded it an A+ inspection grade. Perhaps the most critical factor we consider in calculating our inspection scores is deficiencies. Deficiencies can be found on a nursing home's inspection reports. Places with higher scores in this area typically avoided the most severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. Fortunately, although this nursing home had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those found in categories G through L. This tells you that the inspectors did not 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.

The next category we assessed was short-term care. This facility also was given an A+ short-term care grade, making it one of the few nursing homes to be given several A+ category grades. Short-term care ratings are crucial for residents looking for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually utilizes more skilled nursing. This includes a vast scope of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the information they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Finally, we looked at the percentage of patients that eventually returned home from this nursing home. We found that 6.5 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

In the last area we analyzed, this facility was given first-rate marks in the category of long-term care as well. Consequently, it received an A+. This made it one of the few of nursing homes who received A+'s in each of our categories. Facilities that excel in this category typically provide residents with better supervision and stay on top of routine medical care. After looking at the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we turned to the facility's vaccination records. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is significantly higher than the average nursing home. Lastly, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. It had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.