Glen Meadows Retirement Com.

With an overall grade this high, it should come as no surprise that this facility excelled in the area of inspections, where it received a grade of A. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in computing our inspection grades. One key factor is deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of deficiencies is arguably more important than the quantity of deficiencies, as some can be quite minor. This place was hit with 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered severe. This tells you that CMS did not deem any of these deficiencies to create an immediate threat to resident health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

We also wanted to emphasize the fact that this facility received an impressive grade of A- in our nursing category. Nursing scores are mostly based on a nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This facility provided 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This nursing home 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 frequently be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

We also want to draw your attention to the fact that this nursing home received an elite score of A- in our long-term care category. For residents in need of a permanent residence rather than rehabilitation, long-term care grades are very important. Once we assessed the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination statistics. This nursing home vaccinated 84 percent of its residents for pneumonia, which happens to be somewhat below what we were hoping for but still a decent figure. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

In the final category we analyzed, this nursing home received a very strong grade of A- in our short-term care category. With this score, the nursing home finished off a straight A report card. In the area of short-term care, we strive to evaluate measures of a nursing home's rehabilitation services. We assess the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses and physical therapists. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not all facilities employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last item we considered in this area is the percentage of patients that ultimately returned home from the nursing home. We found that 4.4 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.