Stonerise Bridgeport

One of the reasons this ended up being a quality nursing home is that it earned an A+ inspection grade. This is as good as it gets in this very important category. Arguably the most important factor we look at in determining our inspection grades is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a nursing home's inspection reports. Facilities with higher scores in this category typically avoided the more severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. While this nursing home had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you CMS 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 nursing home fared well in the category of long-term care. Indeed, we awarded it a grade of A- for that area, which is one of our most dominant scores. For patients in need of a permanent residence rather than skilled nursing, long-term care grades are a key measure. After looking at the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we turned to the facility's vaccination record. This nursing home vaccinated 91.45729 percent of its residents against pneumonia, which happens to be a few points less than we were hoping for but still a decent figure. Finally, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

Another strong feature for this facility is that it received an impressive nursing grade. In that area, we awarded this facility a grade of B. In determining our nursing grades, we factor in both staffing levels and the training levels of the nurses. This nursing home averages 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This place performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a facility has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can generally be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

The last area we looked at was short-term care. In that category, we gave this facility a decent grade of C. This actually turned out to be this nursing home's weakest area. Our short-term care ratings are considered to be more critical for patients in need of rehabilitation from their nursing home. Rehabilitation typically utilizes more skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing means not just nursing, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not all facilities 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 metric we looked at in this area is the number of residents that returned home from the nursing home. We found that just 3.9 percent of this facility's patients returned home. This figure was below the national average.