Julia Ribaudo Extended Care Center

One of the reasons this is a decent facility is that it earned a very favorable inspection grade. In this category, we awarded this nursing home a B+. Our inspection ratings weigh several factors found on a facility's inspection reports. One key criteria we look at is the number and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with higher scores in this area usually have few of these severe deficiencies. Fortunately, although this nursing home had some minor dings on its report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G through L. This tells you that the government inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. A couple of minor deficiencies shouldn't lead you to cross a nursing home off your list.

This facility was given its next highest category score in the category of long-term care. We awarded this facility a grade of B- in this area, which is a reasonably acceptable score. In determining our long-term care scores, we assess the nursing home's ability to maintain its permanent residents' health and quality of life. One of the criteria we considered in addition to nursing hours is vaccinations. This facility provided the pneumonia vaccination to 92.193306 percent of its residents. Nevertheless, this facility was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. It had just 1.12 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a much better hospitalization rate than the majority of nursing homes.

The next highest grade we gave this nursing home in any area came in the category of nursing, where we gave it a grade of C. Our nursing score weighs several datapoints. The most heavily weighted factor is the quantity of hours nurses spend with residents. This nursing home provides 3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a much lower figure than we are used to seeing. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based measures, such as avoiding major falls. Although this place did not have as many nursing hours as many of the other nursing homes we looked at, it was still better than average in the area of avoiding falls. This is usually a good indicator of how carefully a nursing home's nursing staff is tending to its patients. Major falls can many times be avoided if more nurses aids and safety protocols are in place.

This nursing home's worst area was short-term care, which is the final category we assessed. For this category, we gave this nursing home a grade of D. Short-term care grades are often used to grade a facility's rehabilitation services. To offer highly rated rehabilitation services, facilities generally need to offer higher levels of skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, respiratory therapists and other highly skilled individuals. Unfortunately, we found that this nursing home provided fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other facilities. The final measure we looked at in this category is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We discovered that just 47.9 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home.