Fremont Healthcare Center

On top of being a first rate facility overall, this facility also excelled in nursing, where it earned an A. We weighed the licensure of nurses employed by the facility, in addition to the quantity of hours those nurses spent with patients, in computing our rating in this category. This facility provided 0.4 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 state in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by having a policy of moving patients more frequently.

Adding to this facility's impressive resume, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A for our inspections rating. Inspection scores weigh a host of factors included in a facility's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we consider is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with higher grades in this category usually have few severe deficiencies. While this facility had a few minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you that the government inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Keep in mind that deficiency-free inspection reports are rare in the industry.

The next category we assessed is short-term care. Contributing to its high-end profile, this facility also excelled in that category. In fact, we gave it a of A- for the category. Our short-term care grade is typically used to grade a nursing home's performance with rehabilitation In order to provide good rehabilitation services, nursing homes generally must have better levels of skilled nursing. These types of services include registered nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists and other licensed professionals. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not all facilities employs these skilled professionals. However, based on the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we assessed the percentage of residents that who were able to eventually return home from this nursing home. We found that 4.6 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home.

In the final category, we gave this facility an A for our long-term care rating. This rounded out a very strong report card. When facilities receive this type of score in this category it is typically a good sign for patient care and indicates that the place is well-staffed with nurses and aids. Once we assessed the amount of nursing care, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination records. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia can be a life or death condition for nursing home residents so we like it when a facility does not roll the dice on this issue. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0.03 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.