Freedom Plaza Care Center

On top of being a first rate facility overall, this facility also excelled in the area of nursing, where it received an A+. Few nursing homes fared better in this category. We assessed the levels of nurses working for the facility, as well as the quantity of hours the nurses were with residents, in determining our rating in this category. This facility provided 0.6 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 Arizona in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by employing a policy of moving a patient more frequently.

This nursing home also received an A+ for its short-term care grade. In computing our short-term care grades, we size up the nursing home's levels of highly skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists respiratory therapists and other highly skilled individuals. This area is often a useful measure of a nursing home's rehabilitation services. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. However, according to the information they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final metric we assessed in this category is the number of patients that were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that 7.1 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

Tallying another strong category grade, this nursing home also excelled in inspections, where it received an A. Few nursing homes performed better in this area. Inspection scores account for several factors included in a nursing home's inspection reports. One key criteria we look at is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Nursing homes with higher scores in this area typically have few of these severe deficiencies. Fortunately, although this facility had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are labeled as categories G through L. This means CMS did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. A couple minor deficiencies aren't necessarily the end of the world.

In our final category, this nursing home also received an excellent long-term care score, with an A-. This finished off an elusive straight A profile. Nursing homes that do well in long-term care tend to be well-staffed and offer extensive hands on care to residents. Once we looked at the volume of care provided by nurses and other staff, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination statistics. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients for pneumonia. Vaccines are vital to keeping patients healthy. Finally, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.