Lorien Taneytown

One of the many reasons this proved to be a great facility is that it received a very impressive long-term care rating. This turned out to be its best category. In this area, we gave this nursing home an A. Facilities that do well in this category tend to be well-staffed and offer extensive hands on care to residents. After we finished assessing the amount of care provided by nurses, we next considered the facility's vaccination statistics. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its residents for pneumonia, which is what we like to see. Pneumonia tragically can be a life or death condition for nursing home residents so we like it when a facility doesn't leave its residents vulnerable. Finally, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had only 0.03 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

Adding to its impressive category scores, this facility also excelled in the area of inspections, where it received an A. These inspection grades weigh several factors, including deficiencies and federal fines. You can learn more about each of these issues by reviewing copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. While this nursing home had some minor dings on its report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means the inspectors 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.

This facility also was elite in the category of short-term care, where we awarded it a score of A. Very few nursing homes received a better grade in this category. In forming these short-term care ratings, we analyze the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, speech therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The purpose is to formulate a barometer for comparing the rehabilitation services of various nursing homes. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we assessed the number of residents that were able to return home from this facility. We found that 6 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

Moving on to the fourth area, this facility was awarded a respectable nursing grade. Even though this was not as elite as some of its other grades, this is really a middle of the pack score. In calculating a facility's nursing grade, we look at the number of hours nurses spend with residents and the levels of training of those nurses. This facility provides only 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a somewhat discouraging figure as it is well below the national average. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures. Although this place got docked a bit for nursing hours per resident, it excelled in a few of these quality metrics. With fewer than five percent of its patients sustaining pressure ulcers, it fared remarkably well in this subcategory. This is often an indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as having a protocol of moving a resident more frequently.