Health Care

Although we gave this place a terrible overall grade, we gave it a B+ for our inspections category. This was the result of the nursing home receiving a decent government inspection report this year. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in calculating our inspection grades. One of those factors is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of deficiencies is arguably more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some of these end up being relatively minor. While this place had some minor dings on its inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you that the inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. A couple minor deficiencies aren't necessarily the end of the world.

We were also stunned to learn that this facility earned a decent long-term care grade this year. We gave it a C in that category. Our long-term care grades are based on the facility's volume of nursing services. This means a vast spectrum of personal care services, ranging from assistance with activities of daily living to routine medical services. On top of assessing the volume of care provided by nurses and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 99.07407 percent of its residents, which is more than most nursing homes. Finally, this facility was also able to limit hospitalizations. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

This facility wound up receiving a bottom of the barrel grade in our short-term care category. It received a lowly F in this category. Our short-term care ratings are critical for patients requiring rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically mandates higher levels of highly-skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes a broad range of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other types of therapy. With a score of this caliber for this category, we weren't shocked to discover this nursing home was below average in several staffing areas we focus on. It offered far fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per patient than most other facilities. Finally, we considered the percentage of residents who ultimately were able to return home from this nursing home. This nursing home didn't fare well here either. In fact, we found that just 0 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home. This figure was well off the national average.

The next area we graded was nursing. Unfortunately, we gave it a lowly F in this category, which is a bottom of the barrel grade. There are quite a few data points within this category. Most of these criteria relate to staffing levels. This facility provided just 0 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low total compared to most nursing homes. Lastly, we also looked at some nursing quality-based metrics in calculating our nursing ratings. This facility fared well in the area of minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.