Glen Ridge Nursing Care Center

While this nursing home's overall grade wasn't a highlight, it actually received a somewhat respectable grade in the area of nursing. We awarded it a B- for that category. Our nursing grade is based on quite a few datapoints, but the main one is the quantity of nurse hours spent with patients. This facility provides only 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident on a daily basis. This is a somewhat alarming figure as it is well below average. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based metrics, such as avoiding major falls. Despite not having the highest total nursing hours per resident, this place actually performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is generally a good indicator that a facility has sufficient quality controls in place. Many falls can be avoided if a facility provides enough nurses aids to assist its residents.

One of this facility's more favorable category scores was in the category of short-term care. This ended up being its second best category. In that category, we gave this nursing home a B-. In computing our short-term care scores, we scrutinize a nursing home's levels of skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists occupational therapists and other types of therapists. This area is considered to be a meaningful assessment of a facility's rehabilitation services. We were surprised to find that this facility was below average in the two key staffing areas we looked at. It supplied fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other nursing homes. It is still important to determine whether this also correlates to a lower quality of care. The final metric we considered in this category is the number of patients that who were able to eventually return home from the nursing home. We found that just 4.7 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home. This figure was below the national average.

This nursing home was given its third most favorable category score in the area of long-term care. We gave this nursing home a B- in this category, which is a reasonably acceptable grade. In computing our long-term care scores, we scrutinize the assistance with daily living offered to a nursing home's patients. Once we looked at the volume of care provided by nurses and other staff, we turned to the facility's vaccination records. Unfortunately, this nursing home vaccinated a relatively low 68.86598 percent of its patients against pneumonia. Nevertheless, this nursing home was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Turning to our final category of inspections, this facility received a grade that's as bad as it gets. We weight this category more heavily than our other categories. When a place has this poor of an inspection grade, you should look for severe deficiencies on its inspection report. Severe deficiencies indicate a threat to the well being of residents. This nursing home was assessed a deficiency by CMS. We were relieved to find that it wasn't in one of the categories that suggest that it caused a risk to resident health or safety. Lastly, this facility was flagged by CMS for possible abuse or neglect. We prefer to avoid facilities with this designation. Please do your best to find an alternative nursing home.