Merriman House

On top of being a great facility overall, it also received A+ government inspections recently. Its inspections are virtually perfect. Inspection grades weigh several factors found on a facility's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we consider is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Nursing homes with higher grades in this area generally have very few of these severe deficiencies. While this place had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means the government inspectors didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

One of the other reasons we graded this nursing home so highly is that it received a very impressive nursing score. In fact, nursing proved to be its second best category grade. In that area, we gave this facility an A+. There are many subcategories within this grade. Many of the criteria relate to nurse staffing. This particular nursing home provided 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 nursing home 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 many times be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

Moving on our next area, we gave this facility a grade of A for our long-term care rating. This is a dominant score. When facilities receive this type of grade in long-term care it is usually a good sign for resident care and indicates that the facility is well-staffed with nurses aids. On top of considering the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients. Vaccines are vital to keeping patients healthy. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

In the last category we assessed, this facility was given an impressive grade grade of B+ in our short-term care category. With this score, the nursing home completed a first-rate profile. In crafting these short-term care scores, we quantify the facility's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, speech therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. The objective is to devise a barometer for comparing the rehabilitation services of nursing homes. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. However, according to the information this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we considered the percentage of residents who who were able to eventually return home from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home.