Northside Gwinnett Extended Care Center

In addition to being a great overall grade, this facility also received A+ health inspections in recent years. Its inspections were virtually flawless. Our inspection ratings weigh several factors found on a facility's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we weigh heavily is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with higher grades in this category typically have very few of these severe deficiencies. Fortunately, although this facility had some minor dings on its inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are found in categories G through L. This tells you that CMS didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Another reason we rated this nursing home so highly is that it received an A+ nursing grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this category. Nursing grades are primarily based on a nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This particular nursing home provided 0.7 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 facility the country in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as employing a policy of moving a patient at least once a day.

Moving on our next category, this high end facility also dominated in the area of short-term care. In this area, it received a grade of A+. Very few nursing homes fared better in this category. Short-term care grades are typically employed to judge a facility's performance with rehabilitation To provide highly scored rehabilitation services, nursing homes generally must offer higher levels of skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists and other highly trained professionals. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all facilities employs these types of nurses. However, according to the data they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we considered the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 6.7 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

In our last category, this nursing home also received an impressive long-term care grade, with a grade of A. This finished off an elite profile. Facilities that excel in this category typically provide residents with better supervision and stay on top of routine medical care. In addition to looking at the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home provided the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia is often a life threatening condition for nursing home patients so we strongly prefer when a facility does not take any chances. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.