Friends Homes West

In addition to faring well overall, this nursing home also earned nearly flawless government inspections. Consequently, it received one of our highest scores in that area with an A+. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in calculating our inspection scores. One critical factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of deficiencies is arguably more important than the quantity of deficiencies, as some end up being quite insignificant. While this facility had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those found in categories G through L. This means that the government inspectors didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Contributing to its top-shelf resume, this nursing home also excelled in our short-term care category. In fact, we awarded it a grade of A in that category. With our short-term care score, we endeavor to forge a fair barometer for rehabilitation. In doing so, we assess a nursing home's level of skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as respiratory therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last measure we considered in this area is the percentage of residents that ultimately returned home from the facility. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

Adding to its impressive resume, this nursing home also excelled in our nursing category. In fact, we awarded it a grade of A for that category. Our nursing rating assesses the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. We look at both the levels of skill of those nurses as well as the quantity of hours spent with patients. This facility provided 0.6 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures 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 country in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can typically be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as employing a protocol of moving a patient more often.

In the last area, this nursing home also received an excellent long-term care score, with an A. This completed an elite profile. Long-term care grades in this range generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine healthcare services. After looking at the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination data. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is significantly higher than most nursing homes. Lastly, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.