Lutheran Home of Southbury

On top of being an elite facility overall, this facility performed well in the area of inspections, where it earned a grade of A+. Few places performed this well in this area. Perhaps the most significant factor we look at in computing our inspection ratings is deficiencies. Deficiencies can be found on a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes with higher scores in this category most likely avoided the more severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. Unfortunately, we weren't able to track down deficiency data for this facility. We wish we had more data for this facility. Without the deficiency related data, it was difficult to really evaluate this nursing home in the inspections category.

One of the other reasons we rated this facility so highly is that it received a very impressive nursing rating. This proved to be its second best category grade. In that area, we gave this facility an A-. Nursing scores are heavily correlated with quantity of nursing care available. This facility provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at some nursing quality measures in determining our nursing grades. This facility performed very well in the area of minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

Turning to an additional strength for this facility, we awarded them one of our more positive scores in our short-term care category as well, with a B+. In the category of short-term care, we try to qualify indicators of a nursing home's rehabilitation. We look at a facility's skilled nursing services, such as the ones performed by registered nurses and physical, occupational and other therapists. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the data they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last item we considered in this area is the number of patients who were able to leave the facility and return home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents were able to return home.

The final category we rated is this nursing home's poorest area. Nevertheless, even its worst category would likely be a highlight for many nursing homes. We gave it a strong grade of B in long-term care. For prospective residents looking for a permanent place to live as opposed to skilled nursing, long-term care is an important category. After considering the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we turned to the nursing home's vaccination record. It does not appear that this facility submitted information about vaccinations. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.