Medilodge of Southfield

Although we graded this facility incredibly poorly overall, it received a fairly respectable nursing grade this year. We gave it a grade of B- in that area. Our nursing rating features a variety of subcategories. The most heavily weighted factor is the quantity of hours nurses spent with residents. This nursing home averages just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low figure. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this place fared better in some of the quality measures we looked at. In fact, it performed well when it comes to minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers.

We were also stunned to find that this facility earned a somewhat respectable short-term care rating this year. We gave it a B- in this area. In crafting 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. The purpose is to devise a measure for sizing up the rehabilitation services of different nursing homes. Unfortunately, this nursing home was below average in terms of its quantity of physical therapy and registered nurse hours provided to its residents based on the metrics we assessed. The critical question is whether this also impacted quality of care. The last datapoint we assessed in this category is the percentage of residents that who were able to eventually return home from the facility. We found that just 3.8 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

We wanted to point out that this facility received an F for its inspection rating. An F in this area is particularly troublesome because it typically points to red flags on the nursing home's inspections. We would advise paying close attention to any deficiencies on a nursing home's inspection reports when it receives this bad of an inspection score. We would pay close attention to the severity of those deficiencies. This facility was assessed one category J through K deficiency, which are among the worst categories of deficiencies. These categories mean that the government inspectors identified a deficiency which puts patient health or safety in imminent jeopardy. Another red flag is that CMS cited this nursing home for possible abuse or neglect. Hopefully, its performance improves in the future, but until then we simply can't recommend this facility.

The final area we assessed was long-term care, in which this nursing home was given an abysmal score in this category as well. We gave it an abysmal F for this area, which is obviously very concerning. For residents in need of a permanent residence as opposed to skilled nursing, long-term care grades are very important. On top of considering the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 99.1579 percent of its patients, which is more than the average nursing home. To our surprise, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. With only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this facility has less hospitalizations than many nursing homes. Unfortunately, some of its other scores in this category weren't as favorable as these.