Jenkins Living Center

On top of faring well overall, this nursing home received nearly flawless government inspections. Consequently, it earned one of our highest grades in that category with a grade of A+. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in computing these inspection grades. One key factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of these deficiencies is usually more important than the number of deficiencies, as some deficiencies end up being quite minor. Fortunately, although this nursing home had a few minor dings on its report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means the government inspectors didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Contributing to its top-shelf profile, this facility also performed well in our short-term care area. In fact, we awarded it a grade of A for the category. In computing these short-term care scores, we quantify the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, speech therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. The goal is to create a tool for sizing up the rehabilitation services of different facilities. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. However, according to the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last metric we assessed in this area is the percentage of residents that who were able to eventually return home from the nursing home. We found that 6.1 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

This nursing home also performed well in the category of long-term care, where it received a score of A-. Only a select group of nursing homes performed better in this area. Facilities that receive this kind of score in long-term care typically provide consistent 24/7 care to ensure residents are well cared for. After considering the quantity of nursing care, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination record. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is what we like to see. Pneumonia can be a dangerous ailment for nursing home patients so we prefer when a facility doesn't roll the dice on this issue. Lastly, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

The final category we analyzed is nursing, where this nursing home received an A-. This completed a very strong report card. Very few nursing homes earned an A- or higher in every category. In determining a nursing home's nursing grade, we weigh the amount of time nurses spend with patients as well as the skill levels of those nurses. This facility provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also factored a few quality measures into our nursing grades. This facility was relatively weak in two of the major areas we focus on, with below average scores for minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers. These areas are generally reliable indicators of the quality of nursing care provided.