The Marquardt

In addition to being a respectable facility overall, this facility also excelled in the category of inspections, where it received a grade of A-. Few facilities performed better in this area. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in determining our inspection ratings. One key factor is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of the deficiencies is usually more important than the quantity of deficiencies, as some deficiencies can be quite insignificant. This facility was hit with 2 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none were considered to be severe. This tells you that the government inspectors did not consider any of these deficiencies to be an imminent threat to patient safety or health. A few minor deficiencies should not stop you from considering a nursing home.

One of the other reasons we graded this nursing home so highly is that it received a very impressive nursing rating. In that category, we gave this nursing home an B-. When computing a nursing home's nursing rating, we look at the quantity of hours nurses are seeing patients as well as the levels of training of the nurses. This nursing home provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per patient per day. This is a relatively low total compared to most other nursing homes. Lastly, our nursing scores also factor in quality-based assessments, such as preventing major falls. Despite not having the highest total nursing hours per resident, this nursing home actually performed admirably in the metric of preventing major falls. This is often a reliable indicator that a nursing home has quality controls in place. Some falls can be avoided if a nursing home supplies enough nurses aids to assist its patients.

The third area we graded was short-term care. In that area, we gave this nursing home a C. In forming these short-term care grades, we assess the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. Our goal is to create a barometer for comparing the rehabilitation services of various nursing homes. We were surprised to find that this facility was below average in the two key staffing areas we assessed. The facility supplied fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other facilities. It is still important to determine whether this is adversely impacting the quality of care. Lastly, we looked at the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 4.2 percent of this facility's patients returned home. At most nursing homes, closer to half of their patients are able to return home so this figure is below average.

The next area we assessed was long-term care, which is this nursing home's weakest area. We gave it a lowly F for this area, which is certainly a major concern. When facilities receive this kind of score in long-term care it is a bad sign for resident care and it may mean that the nursing home is not as well-staffed with nurses and aids. In addition to looking at the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. Frankly, we were a bit bothered by the fact that this nursing home administered the vaccine to just 87.265915 percent of its residents. To our surprise, this place was actually able to limit hospitalizations. With only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this facility has less hospitalizations than the majority of nursing homes. This is its best score in this category.