Independence House

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a quality nursing home is that it received an A+ inspection grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this critical category. Our inspection scores weigh a host of factors found on a nursing home's inspection reports. One key criteria we weigh heavily is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Nursing homes with better scores in this category usually have few severe deficiencies. Fortunately, although this facility had some minor dings on its inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are labeled as categories G through L. This tells you that the inspectors didn't deem 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.

Contributing to its fine resume, this nursing home also received an excellent long-term care grade, with a score of A-. Nursing homes that do well in this category tend to provide residents with closer supervision and stay on top of routine medical care. After looking at the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we next considered the facility's vaccination records. This facility vaccinated 99.25926 percent of its patients for pneumonia. Vaccines are critical to keeping patients healthy. Finally, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This nursing home also received a very impressive nursing grade. In that area, we awarded this facility a grade of A-. Our nursing grade analyzes the nursing home's nurse staffing levels. We factor in both the levels of licensure of the nurses and the number of hours spent with residents. 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 facility excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any nursing home the state in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as by having a system of moving patients even once per day.

In our final area, we gave this facility an A+ for our short-term care score. This completed a very impressive report card. Short-term care ratings are meaningful for patients needing rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically requires more highly-skilled nursing services. This includes a broad scope of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. However, according to the information this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last metric we considered in this area is the number of residents that were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that 5.2 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.