Falcon Lake Nursing Home

In addition to being a respectable facility overall, this place also excelled in the category of inspections, where it earned an A-. Few nursing homes performed better in this category. Our inspection grades are tied to several datapoints located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that receive favorable grades in this area tend to have very few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these facilities should not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. Although this nursing home had some deficiencies on its report, none were severe based on CMS' scale. A couple minor deficiencies shouldn't stop you from considering a nursing home.

The next highest area we gave this nursing home in any area came in the category of long-term care, where we gave it a C. Our long-term care scores are pivotal for patients needing non-healthcare services such as personal care. Once we looked at the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we turned to the nursing home's vaccination records. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents for pneumonia, which is more than the average nursing home. Finally, this nursing home was also able to limit hospitalizations. It had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This nursing home's next best area is short-term care. In that area, we awarded this facility a C. In our short-term care grade, we try to create a fair measure for rehabilitation services. In this process, we look at the facility's levels of skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as occupational therapy. We were surprised to find that this place was below average in the two key staffing areas we focus on. The facility provided fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than most other facilities. It is still important to determine whether this also correlates to a lower quality of care. Finally, we looked at the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most nursing homes, closer to half of their patients are able to return home so this figure is below average.

The next area we analyzed is nursing, which was this facility's least impressive category. We awarded this facility a grade of D in that category. The nursing grade is based on numerous data points. The most heavily weighted factor is the quantity of hours nurses spend with residents. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low total compared to most nursing homes. Finally, we also assessed some nursing quality-based metrics in determining our nursing grades. This place performed well in terms of minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers. We consider these metrics to be reliable indicators of the quality of nursing care.