Gardens Court

On top of being an elite nursing home overall, this facility also performed well in our inspections category, where it received an A+. Few nursing homes performed this well in this category. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in calculating these inspection ratings. One critical factor is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of deficiencies is arguably more important than the quantity of deficiencies, as some are relatively insignificant. Although this place had a few deficiencies on its report, none of them were major deficiencies based on CMS' scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Adding to its strong profile, this facility also excelled in our long-term care category. In fact, we awarded it a score of A in the category. Facilities that excel in this category tend to provide patients with closer supervision and stay on top of routine medical care. After assessing the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we next considered the facility's vaccination records. This facility vaccinated 99.70588 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is significantly higher than the majority of nursing homes. Finally, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had only 0.03 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

This nursing home also fared very well in the category of short-term care, where it received a grade of A. Very few nursing homes fared better in this category. Short-term care grades are generally employed to measure a nursing home's rehabilitation services In order to provide high-end rehabilitation services, nursing homes generally need to have higher levels of highly skilled nursing. These types of services include registered nurses, physical therapists, speech therapists and other licensed professionals. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all facilities employs these types of nurses. However, according to the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final measure we looked at in this category is the number of patients who ultimately were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that 5 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

The fourth area we rated is nursing, where this nursing home was awarded a grade of A-. This topped off a very strong report card. Not many facilities earned an A- or higher in each of our categories. Our nursing category is based on quite a few data points, many of which are associated with quantities of nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0.4 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 nursing home has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can many times be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.