Grand Lake Villa

This facility received a strong overall score as described above, but we want to note its excellent short-term care score. We awarded them an A in this category. Our short-term care grades are based on the facility's quantity of skilled nursing services. This means a vast range of services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, not to mention other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last datapoint we assessed in this area is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the facility and return home. We found that 5.9 percent of this facility's patients returned home.

This nursing home also performed well in inspections, which is based on the facility's recent inspection reports. In fact, we gave it a grade of A- for that area. Arguably the most important factor we consider in determining our inspection grades is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a facility's inspection reports. Facilities with better scores in this category most likely avoided the more severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. This facility was hit with 2 deficiencies on its inspection report, but fortunately none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe. This means that CMS did not deem any of these deficiencies to cause an immediate risk to resident health or safety. Remember that deficiency-free inspection reports are rare in the industry.

Adding to this nursing home's list of strengths, it also received an excellent nursing grade. We awarded them an impressive grade of A- in this category. When determining a facility's nursing grade, we consider the amount of time nurses are with residents as well as the level of licensure of the nurses. This particular nursing home provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures and this place excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place the state in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can typically be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as employing a policy of moving patients at least once a day.

The last area we graded turned out to be this nursing home's worst area. However, even in its weakest link we still gave it a respectable grade of B- in long-term care. For patients in need of a permanent residence as opposed to rehabilitation, long-term care is a very important category. Once we assessed the quantity of nursing care, we then analyzed the nursing home's vaccination records. We were pleased to find that this facility vaccinates 100 percent of its patients for pneumonia. Lastly, this place was also able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.