Life Care Center of the South Shore

In addition to performing well in its overall grade, this facility received an excellent long-term care grade. In fact, we gave it a grade of A in that category. For residents looking for a permanent residence rather than rehabilitation, long-term care is an important category. After looking at the volume of care provided by nurses and other staff, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination records. This nursing home vaccinated 89.43894 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is a few points less than we anticipated but still a respectable percentage. Although its vaccination rate was a bit lower than we hoped for, at least this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. It had only 0.02 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

We also would like to emphasize the fact that this facility was awarded a dominant score of A in our short-term care category. In forming our short-term care grades, we look at the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The goal is to create a measure for sizing up the rehabilitation services of different facilities. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we considered the percentage of patients that who were able to eventually return home from this nursing home. We found that 5.9 percent of this facility's patients returned home.

Turning to another of this facility's strengths, it also earned a very impressive inspection grade. In fact, inspections proved to be one of its best grades. In that category, we awarded this facility a grade of B+. Inspection scores account for several factors found on a facility's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we look at is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better grades in this area usually have few of these severe deficiencies. This facility was hit with 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe deficiencies. This tells you that the government inspectors didn't deem any of the deficiencies to create an immediate threat to resident safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Switching gears to the final area, this facility was awarded a high-end nursing grade. We awarded it a grade of B+ in this category, rounding out one of our better report cards. There are many criteria within this category. Most of the data points are tied to staffing levels. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at some quality-based measures in this category. This facility fared well in some of the quality measures we assessed. For example, in terms of the number of its patients suffering from pressure ulcers, this facility performed better than the national average. This is generally an indicator that a facility has reliable quality controls in place. Pressure ulcers can often be avoided with better nursing care.