Fraser Health Center

To go along with its favorable overall score, we awarded this nursing home an A+ for our inspections rating. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in computing our inspection scores. One critical factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of the deficiencies is usually more important than the number of deficiencies, as some of these end up being relatively insignificant. Fortunately, although this facility had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those found in categories G through L. This tells you CMS didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

In addition, this facility received high marks in the area of nursing. As a result, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A+. Nursing scores are mostly based on the nursing home's nurse staffing. This particular nursing home provided 0.6 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at some nursing quality measures in determining our nursing grades. This place performed very well when it comes to avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

The next area we assessed was long-term care. This nursing home fared very well in our long-term care rating as well. We gave them an exemplary grade of A+ in this area. Facilities that receive this type of grade in this category tend to provide consistent around the clock care to ensure residents are well cared for. In addition to looking at the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients, which is much higher than the average nursing home. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Switching gears to the final category, this nursing home was awarded an excellent short-term care rating. In fact, we awarded it an A- in this area, giving this facility straight A's. In crafting these short-term care scores, we look at the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. Our objective is to formulate a tool for sizing up the rehabilitation services of different facilities. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. However, based on the information this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Lastly, we looked at the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 4.9 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home.