Mellen Manor

To pair with its strong overall score, we gave this facility an A for our nursing rating. In determining our nursing grades, we analyze both staffing levels and the levels of licensure of those nurses. This facility provided 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This facility performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a place has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can generally be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

Adding to this nursing home's impressive resume, we gave this nursing home an A- for our inspections rating. Perhaps the most significant factor we look at in computing our inspection grades is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a nursing home's inspection reports. Nursing homes with higher grades in this category typically avoided the most severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. This nursing home was assessed 5 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe deficiencies. This indicates that CMS didn't consider any of these deficiencies to create an imminent threat to resident safety or health. The fact that none of the deficiencies were severe leaves us less concerned with this inspection report.

Turning our next category, this nursing home was awarded an excellent short-term care score. In fact, we gave it a grade of A- in that category. In calculating our short-term care ratings, we size up the nursing home's levels of highly skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists respiratory therapists and other highly skilled individuals. This rating is often a fair assessment of a facility's rehabilitation services. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not all facilities employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we considered the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home.

The final area we analyzed was long-term care, in which this nursing home was given a grade of B. Believe it or not, this was this nursing home's worst area. A nursing home could be doing a lot worse when their weakest score still rates higher than most other facilities. Nursing homes that excel in long-term care tend to be well-staffed and provide extensive hands on care to patients. In addition to assessing the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients, which is much higher than the vast majority of nursing homes. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.