Jefferson Community Health & Life Gardenside

One of the reasons this ended up being a great nursing home is that it received an impressive inspection grade. In fact, inspections turned out to be its best category. In that area, we awarded this facility an A. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in calculating these inspection scores. One critical factor is deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of these deficiencies is usually more important than the number of deficiencies, as some deficiencies end up being relatively insignificant. This facility was assessed 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none were considered to be major deficiencies. This indicates that the government inspectors did not consider any of these deficiencies an imminent threat to resident health or safety. A few minor dings are not necessarily something to panic about.

This nursing home also received a very impressive nursing grade. In fact, this turned out to be its second best category grade. In that area, we awarded this facility a grade of A. Nursing ratings are based largely on quality and quantity of nursing care. This nursing home averages 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at some nursing quality measures in determining our nursing grades. This nursing home performed very well in terms of avoiding major falls and pressure ulcers. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

The next area we assessed was short-term care. This facility was given an above average short-term care score, with a grade of B+ in this area. In determining our short-term care grades, we analyze a nursing home's levels of skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists respiratory therapists and other types of therapists. This grade is generally a useful assessment of the facility's rehabilitation. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the data they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last metric we considered in this area is the percentage of patients who ultimately were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

The next area we analyzed was long-term care. We gave this nursing home one of our better scores in this area, with a grade of B. Even though this was not as high as some of this facility's other scores, it is still a positive score. Facilities that do well in long-term care tend to be well-staffed and offer extensive hands on care to residents. Once we looked at the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we next considered the facility's vaccination statistics. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is significantly higher than the vast majority of nursing homes. Finally, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. It had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.