Hearthstone of Northern Nevada

We would like to note that this nursing home received favorable marks in the category of short-term care this year. We awarded them one of our better scores in that category, with a B+. This proved to be the nursing home's top score and helped its profile overall. In forming these short-term care ratings, we quantify the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The purpose is to formulate a measure for sizing up the rehabilitation services of different nursing homes. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all facilities employs these types of nurses. However, according to the information this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last item we assessed in this area is the number of patients who eventually returned home from the nursing home. We found that 5.3 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

This nursing home's second best category grade came in the area of government inspections. In that category, we gave this nursing home a B. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in determining these inspection scores. One key factor is deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of the deficiencies is usually more important than the number of deficiencies, as some deficiencies are quite minor. Although this place had some deficiencies on its report, none were severe based on CMS' scale. The fact that none of the deficiencies were severe leaves us less concerned with this inspection report.

Next, we looked at the nursing category where we awarded this nursing home a grade of B-, which is a decent grade. Nursing grades are mostly tied to the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a relatively low total compared to most other facilities. Finally, our nursing grades also consider quality-based metrics, such as preventing major falls. Despite not having the highest total nursing hours, this nursing home performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is generally an indicator that a facility has sufficient quality controls in place. Some falls can be avoided if a nursing home supplies enough nurses aids to assist its patients.

Switching gears to our final area, this facility received a B- in long-term care, which we consider to be a respectable grade. In the category of long-term care, we analyze the quantity of services offered by a nursing home, as opposed to more medically-intensive services. In addition to considering the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility provided the vaccine to 93.70078 percent of its residents, which is somewhat below what we were hoping for. Nevertheless, this facility was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.