Capstone Healthcare Estates at Veterans Memorial

While we were not very complementary of this nursing home's overall grade, it actually received a very impressive inspection report this year. In fact, it received an excellent inspection report this year. As a result, it received one of our highest grades in that category with an A. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in determining these inspection ratings. One key factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of these deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some of these end up being quite insignificant. This nursing home received 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be severe. This tells you that the government inspectors didn't consider any of these deficiencies to cause an immediate threat to resident safety or health. A couple minor deficiencies are not necessarily the end of the world.

As it turns out, this facility only earned a D for its long-term care rating, which was actually one of its more respectable category scores. For patients seeking a permanent residence rather than rehabilitation, long-term care is an important category. On top of assessing the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. Thankfully, this nursing home gave the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients, which is a very respectable percentage. Surprisingly, this facility was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0.03 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days. Unfortunately, some of its other scores in the category were not as favorable as these.

We gave this facility a grade of just D for our nursing rating. The nursing score includes many factors. The most heavily weighted variable is the quantity of hours nurses spend with patients. This nursing home averaged just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident daily. Lastly, we also assessed some nursing quality measures in computing our nursing ratings. This place performed well when it comes to avoiding major falls and pressure ulcers. Many consider these datapoints to be indicators of the quality of nursing care.

The last area we graded was short-term care, where this nursing home was given a rock bottom grade in this category also. Unfortunately, we gave it an F in this category, which is obviously a major concern. In computing these short-term care grades, we analyze the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The purpose is to formulate a barometer for comparing the rehabilitation services of different facilities. Not surprisingly, we found that this nursing home provides far less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than the average facility. Lastly, we looked at the percentage of patients that were able to return home from this facility. This facility didn't fare well here either. In fact, we found that just 3.3 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home. This figure was well off the national average.