Friedwald Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing

In addition to receiving a strong overall score, this facility fared even better in the area of inspections which is based on the facility's recent inspection reports. In fact, we gave it an A+ for this area, which is one of our highest scores. These inspection grades weigh several factors, including deficiencies, substantiated complaints and federal fines. You can find more information about each of these items by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. This facility was assessed 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered severe. This tells you that the inspectors didn't deem any of these deficiencies to create an immediate risk to resident safety or health. A few relatively minor deficiencies aren't necessarily the end of the world.

Another quality feature for this facility is that it received an impressive long-term care grade. In fact, this wound up being its second best category grade. In this category, we awarded this nursing home a grade of B+. When facilities receive a score in this range in long-term care it typically means it has plenty of staff and is a quality place to live on a permanent basis. In addition to considering the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility provided the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia sadly is often a life threatening health condition for nursing home residents so we strongly prefer when a nursing home does not leave this to chance. Finally, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

This nursing home is also above average in the category of short-term care, where it was awarded a grade of B. It outperformed most nursing homes in this category. Our short-term care grades are critical for individuals in need of rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically utilizes higher levels of skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes a broad scope of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the information they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final item we considered in this category is the number of residents who were able to leave the facility and return home. We discovered that 5.2 percent of this facility's patients returned home.

The last category we assessed is nursing. We gave it an F in this area, which is a rock bottom grade. You shouldn't necessarily disregard a nursing home due to a single terrible grade though. The nursing grade considers a number of data points. The most important variable is the quantity of hours nurses spent with residents. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a much lower figure than we are used to seeing. While this nursing home did not excel in the area of nursing hours, it surprised us in a few of the quality-based assessments in the nursing category, such as avoiding serious falls. This place was above average in this datapoint, which is one redeeming quality we found in this area.