Kendal on Hudson

We also wanted to point out the fact that this nursing home has received near flawless inspections recently. We gave them an A+ in this category. Our inspection ratings weigh several factors included in a nursing home's inspection reports. One key criteria we rely on is the number and severity of deficiencies. Places with higher scores in this category usually have very few of these severe deficiencies. This facility received 2 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none were considered severe. This means that CMS didn't consider any of the deficiencies to be an immediate threat to resident health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

We also awarded this nursing home a grade of A+ for its nursing grade. Our nursing score is largely based on the facility's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home boasts a really impressive 5.7 hours of nursing care per resident daily, of which a significant percentage of those hours were provided by registered nurses. This is one of the more highly trained levels of nurses. In addition to providing impressive levels of care, this place also excelled in the quality-based metrics we looked at. It performed as well as any facility in the nation in the area of minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls.

Turning the page to our next category, this high end facility also performed remarkably in the area of long-term care. In this category, it received a A+. Only a small group of facilities performed better in this area. Facilities that excel in long-term care tend to provide residents with closer supervision and stay on top of routine healthcare services. One of the datapoints we considered on top of this nursing home's quality nursing hours was vaccinations. This facility provided the pneumonia vaccine to 100 percent of its residents. Vaccines are a great way to avoid unnecessary hospitalizations for seniors. Lastly, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

The final area we rated was short-term care. We awarded them another first-rate grade of A+ in this category. This completed a flawless profile of four A+'s. Our short-term care ratings are presumably more important for residents needing rehabilitation from their nursing home. Rehabilitation typically requires more skilled nursing services. This includes not merely nursing services, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other forms of therapy. This nursing home excelled at the highest level in the two key staffing areas we assessed. The facility offered about 50% more care from physical therapists and registered nurses than the typical facility. Finally, we looked at the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that it outperformed the vast majority of facilities in the nation in this area with 62.5 percent of its residents returning home.