Freedom Plaza Care Center

To go along with its strong overall score, we gave this facility a grade of A+ for its short-term care grade. Our short-term care grades are thought to be more meaningful for people in need of rehabilitation services. Rehabilitation typically mandates higher levels of highly-skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing means not only nursing, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last metric we assessed in this category is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return home. We found that 7.1 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home.

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 largely associated with the facility's nurse staffing. This facility provided 0.6 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics and this place excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place the nation in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as by employing a system of turning residents even once per day.

We awarded this nursing home an A for our inspections rating. These inspection scores weigh several factors, including deficiencies and federal fines. You can find more information about each of these issues by reviewing copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. While this nursing home had some deficiencies on its report, none were major deficiencies based on CMS' deficiency scale. We should point out that deficiency-free inspection reports are rare in this industry.

Switching gears to our final category, this nursing home received a strong long-term care rating. We gave it a B+ in this category, finishing off one of our better report cards. When facilities receive this kind of score in this category it is usually a good sign for resident care and indicates that the nursing home is well-staffed with nurses and aids. On top of assessing the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia sadly can be a life or death condition for nursing home patients so we like it 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 residents out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.