Maryland Gardens Care Center

We also found that this facility excelled in our long-term care rating. We awarded them a grade of A+ in this category. When nursing homes receive this type of grade in long-term care it is a good sign for resident care and suggests that the facility is well-staffed with nurses and aids. On top of looking at the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is significantly higher than the average nursing home. Lastly, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

This facility also received an A+ inspection grade, making it one of the rare nursing homes to receive multiple A+'s in our category grades. This is based on the nursing home's recent inspection reports. An A+ in this category is one of the highest complements we can pay to a facility. Inspection scores take several factors into consideration, including deficiencies, substantiated complaints and federal fines. You can find more information about each of these items by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. While this facility had some deficiencies on its government inspection report, none of them were serious based on CMS' scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This facility also excelled in the area of nursing, where it received a grade of A. Few nursing homes performed better in this area. We assessed the levels of nurses employed by the facility, in addition to the quantity of time those nurses worked with residents, in calculating our score in this area. This particular nursing home provided 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics and this nursing home 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 frequently be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as employing a system of turning patients more often.

Moving on to our last category, this facility also excelled in the short-term care category. In fact, we awarded it a grade of B+ in that category. This completed a very impressive report card. Short-term care ratings are meaningful for individuals looking for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically mandates higher levels of highly-skilled nursing. Skilled nursing means a wide range of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the data they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final statistic we assessed in this area is the number of residents who who were able to eventually return home from the facility. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.