Liberty Nursing Center of Mansfield

To pair with its relatively modest overall score, we gave this nursing home an A- for our inspections rating. This is far more impressive than its overall rating. Arguably the most critical factor we consider in determining our inspection grades is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a facility's inspection reports. Nursing homes with higher scores in this area typically dodged the most severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. This nursing home was hit with 5 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be major deficiencies. This means that the inspectors didn't deem any of the deficiencies to create an imminent risk to patient safety or health. A few minor deficiencies should not stop you from considering a nursing home.

In addition, we gave this nursing home a grade of B in our short-term care category. This is one of our better grades. In the area of short-term care, we try to qualify measures of a facility's rehabilitation services. We analyze a nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as the ones performed by registered nurses and physical therapists. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not all facilities employs these skilled professionals. However, based on the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we considered the percentage of patients who ultimately were able to return home from this nursing home. We found that 6.1 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home.

The next area we assessed was long-term care, where this nursing home was given a grade of C in this category. If you are looking for services other than rehabilitation, you should take a close look at long-term care ratings. On top of looking at the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. Fortunately, this nursing home gave the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients, which is an above average statistic. This nursing home also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

The final area we rated is nursing. It received an abysmal F for this category, which is a rock bottom score. This is obviously a significant concern. When determining our nursing ratings, we assess both the number of hours nurses spend with residents and the skill levels of the nurses. This nursing home provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a much lower figure than we are used to seeing. In addition to ranking below average in nursing hours per resident, this nursing home also had poor marks in the quality-based measures we looked at in determining our nursing grades. We looked at the percent of patients experiencing major falls and pressure ulcers. This nursing home was at approximately 150 percent of the national average in both of these metrics. This is likely a bad sign when you consider that many bed sores and falls are believed to be preventable with better nursing care. These statistics pulled down this facility's nursing rating quite a bit.