Ladysmith Living Center

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a quality nursing home is that it received an A+ inspection grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this critical category. Inspection scores weigh several factors, including deficiencies, substantiated complaints and federal fines. You can find more information about each of these items by reviewing copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. Fortunately, although this place had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you that CMS did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

An additional reason we assessed this facility so favorably is that it was given an A+ long-term care grade. This is flat out as elite as it gets in this category. Long-term care scores of this caliber generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine medical care. On top of looking at the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents. Vaccines are critical to keeping patients healthy. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This nursing home also received a strong nursing score. In fact, we awarded it an above average grade of B+ in this area. Our nursing grade focuses on the facility's level of nurse staffing. We factor in both the levels of licensure of those nurses as well as the number of hours spent with patients. This facility provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This nursing home performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a facility has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can typically be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

The next category we rated was short-term care. We gave this facility one of our better scores in this category, with a grade of B. Although this wasn't on par with some of this facility's other scores, it is nevertheless a perfectly acceptable score. In computing these short-term care grades, we assess the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, speech therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The objective is to devise a barometer for sizing up the rehabilitation services of nursing homes. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not all facilities employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Lastly, we assessed the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.