Little Sisters of the Poor

To go along with its strong overall grade, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A+ for our inspections rating. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in determining our inspection grades. One key factor is health deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of these deficiencies is usually more important than the quantity of deficiencies, as some of these can be quite minor. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This nursing home also was awarded an A+ long-term care grade, rendering it one of the few nursing homes to receive more than one A+ category grades. Long-term care grades of this caliber generally require both 24/7 care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine medical care. One of the datapoints we considered after nurse's aid hours was vaccinations. This facility administered the pneumonia vaccine to 96.1165 percent of its residents. Vaccination is a proven method to minimize unnecessary hospitalizations for the senior population. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

We also wanted to emphasize the fact that this facility excelled in our nursing rating. We awarded them an impressive grade of A+ in this category. The nursing score is based on a host of subcategories. The most heavily weighted one is the amount of time nurses spent with residents. This nursing home averages 0.7 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures and this facility excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place the nation in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as employing a policy of moving residents more frequently.

Switching gears to the last category, this nursing home received a highly favorable short-term care rating. We awarded it a grade of A in this area, resulting in this facility receiving straight A's. In the area of short-term care, we endeavor to qualify measures of a nursing home's rehabilitation services. We look at a nursing home's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses and physical and occupational therapists. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not all facilities employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final measure we looked at in this area is the percentage of patients that were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.