Embassy of Ivy Hill

While this facility received a decent overall rating, its inspections rating is notably better than its overall score. Due to a strong inspection report this year, it earned one of our better scores in that area with a B. Inspection scores take several factors into consideration, including deficiencies and substantiated complaints. You can find more information about each of these factors by reviewing copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. Fortunately, although this facility had a few minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are labeled as categories G through L. This tells you the inspectors didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. A couple of minor deficiencies should not lead you to cross a nursing home off your list.

The second highest grade we gave this nursing home in any area came in the category of nursing, where we gave it a grade of B-. Our nursing score is mostly tied to the facility's nurse staffing. This particular nursing home provided just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This figure is far below average. Lastly, our nursing ratings also consider quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. Despite not having the highest total nursing hours, this nursing home actually performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is typically a good indicator that a place has quality controls in place. Many falls could be avoided if a facility provides enough nurses aids to assist its residents.

The third area we looked at was short-term care, where this facility was given a B- in this category. Our short-term care scores are probably most critical for those in need of a nursing home for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally requires additional highly-skilled nursing. Skilled nursing means not merely nursing services, but also physical and respiratory therapy, as well as other types of therapy. Unfortunately, we found that this place provided fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other nursing homes. The final datapoint we assessed in this category is the number of residents who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We discovered that just 5.1 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home, which is actually below average.

This nursing home's worst category was long-term care, which is the last area we scored. We gave it an abysmal F in this category. In spite of a few acceptable scores in other areas, this grade is nevertheless disappointing so we wanted to make a note of it. When facilities receive a grade in this range in this category it generally means the nursing home didn't perform well in our quality measures relating to resident care. In addition to considering the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. As it turns out, this facility provided the vaccine to only 23.913042 percent of its patients, which is somewhat alarming. To our surprise, this nursing home actually fared well at keeping its patients out of the hospital. It had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days. This is its best score in this category.