Gino J Merli Veterans Center

On top of being a first rate facility overall, this facility also excelled in the category of nursing, where it received an A+. Few nursing homes performed better in this category. We weighed the levels of nurses employed by the nursing home, in addition to the quantity of hours the nurses spent with patients, in determining our score in this area. This nursing home provides 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality measures and this facility excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any facility the country in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as employing a system of moving a patient more frequently.

This nursing home also earned an A+ inspection score, making it one of the rare nursing homes to receive multiple A+'s in our category grades. Our inspection ratings weigh several factors found on a nursing home's inspection report. One key criteria we consider is the number and severity of deficiencies. Places with higher scores in this category typically have few severe deficiencies. Amazingly, this was one of the few nursing homes in the country that had no deficiencies whatsoever on its inspection report. This is very impressive. A deficiency-free inspection report is definitely the goal.

This nursing home also was superb in the area of short-term care, where it received a grade of A-. Few nursing homes fared better in this area. Short-term care scores are based in part on a facility's quantity of highly-skilled nursing services. This includes a wide spectrum of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final measure we looked at in this category is the percentage of residents that were able to return home from the nursing home. 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.

In our last area, this facility also received an excellent long-term care score, with a grade of B+. This rounded out an elite profile. When nursing homes receive this type of score in this category it is typically a good sign for resident care and suggests that the nursing home is well-staffed with nurses and aids. One of the statistics we considered in addition to nursing hours was vaccines. This nursing home administered the pneumonia vaccination to 100 percent of its residents. Vaccination is a great way to avoid unnecessary hospitalizations for the nursing home population. Finally, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.