Kendal at Ithaca

In addition to being a quality nursing home overall, this place also excelled in our inspections category, where it earned an A+. Few nursing homes fared better in that area. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in determining our inspection ratings. One key factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of these deficiencies is usually more important than the quantity of deficiencies, as some of these are relatively insignificant. This nursing home was assessed 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none were considered to be severe. This means that CMS did not consider any of these deficiencies to create an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Another one of this facility's quality category scores came in the area of long-term care. We awarded them one of our more positive grades in that area, with a score of B+. If you are seeking anything other than rehabilitation, you should take a close look at each nursing home's long-term care ratings. Once we looked at the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we next considered the facility's vaccination records. This facility vaccinated 93.41318 percent of its residents for pneumonia, which is a few points lower than we expected but still a decent figure. Lastly, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

This facility's next best category was its nursing grade, where it received a grade of C. While this didn't quite match its scores in some of the categories discussed above, this is still a decent score. When calculating our nursing ratings, we assess both staffing levels and the training levels of those nurses. This nursing home averages just 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low figure. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this place surprisingly excelled in some of the quality-based metrics we assessed. In fact, it scored well in terms of avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls. Many consider these areas to be indicators of the quality of nursing care. In many cases, the quality of nursing care is every bit as important as the number of hours of care offered.

The final category we graded is short-term care, which was this facility's weakest category. We awarded this nursing home a D in this area. Sadly, this category hurt the nursing home's overall profile to some degree. In the category of short-term care, we try to qualify indicators of a facility's rehabilitation services. We analyze a facility's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses and physical, occupational and other therapists. In this place's case, it looks like it offered less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than a typical facility. Finally, we assessed the percentage of residents who eventually returned home from this nursing home. This facility didn't fare well here either. In fact, we found that just 4.2 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home.