Kauai Veterans Memorial Hospital

We also would like to emphasize that this facility excelled in our nursing category. We awarded them an A+ in this category. We weighed the licensure of nurses at the nursing home, as well as the number of hours the nurses worked with patients, in calculating our score in this category. This nursing home provides 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also looked at some nursing quality measures in determining our nursing grades. This nursing home performed very well when it comes to avoiding major falls and pressure ulcers. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

Adding to its impressive profile, this facility also performed well in our long-term care area. In fact, it received a score of A in the area. Facilities that receive this type of score in this category typically provide consistent around the clock care to ensure residents are well cared for. One of the criteria we considered in addition to nurse's aid hours is vaccines. This nursing home administered the pneumonia vaccine to 94.520546 percent of its patients. This is a proven method to avoid negative health outcomes for the senior population. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

Another quality feature of this nursing home is its inspection score. In that category, we gave this facility an A-. Our inspection grades weigh a host of factors found on a facility's inspection report. One key criteria we look at is the number and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with higher scores in this area usually have few severe deficiencies. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

The fourth area we assessed is short-term care, where this nursing home was awarded a grade of A-. This topped off a very favorable profile. Very few facilities received an A- or higher in in each area we assessed. In our short-term care score, we seek to craft a meaningful gauge for rehabilitation. In this process, we assess the nursing home's level of highly-skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as speech therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. However, based on the data they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final measure we assessed in this category is the number of residents who ultimately were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.