Friends Homes West

In addition to receiving a great overall rating, this facility received an A+ inspection score. This is based on the facility's recent inspection reports. An A+ in this category is one of the best complements we can pay to a nursing home. Inspection ratings are based on datapoints found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that receive favorable grades in this area typically have few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these facilities should not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. Fortunately, although this nursing home had some minor dings on its inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones labeled as categories G through L. This tells you that the inspectors did not deem 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.

Adding to its strong resume, this nursing home also was given a strong short-term care score, with a grade of A. In computing our short-term care ratings, we analyze the facility's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. The objective is to create a measure for comparing the rehabilitation services of nursing homes. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not all facilities employs these types of nurses. However, according to the information this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final statistic we considered in this category is the percentage of patients that returned home from the facility. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

We also wanted to emphasize the fact that this facility received an impressive grade of A in our nursing category. Our nursing category consists of a handful of components, many of which are tied to quantities of nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0.6 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This place performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a place has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can often be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

The last area we analyzed is long-term care, where this nursing home was awarded an A-. This completed a very strong profile. Few facilities earned an A- or higher in every single category. When facilities receive this type of score in this category it is a good sign for resident care and suggests that the nursing home is well-staffed with nurses and aids. In addition to assessing the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients, which is very impressive. Pneumonia sadly is often a deadly ailment for nursing home residents so we strongly prefer when a facility does not leave this to chance. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.