Methodist Specialty Care Center

One of the reasons this place turned out to be a quality nursing home is that it earned an A+ inspection grade. This is as good as it gets in this critical category. Arguably the most critical factor we consider in determining our inspection scores is deficiencies. These deficiencies can be found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Facilities with better scores in this area most likely avoided the more severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. Fortunately, although this nursing home had a few minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones found in categories G through L. This tells you that CMS did not deem 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 facility also was given a very strong long-term care grade. In fact, this ended up being its second most impressive category grade. In that area, we gave this facility a grade of A. When facilities receive a score in this range in long-term care it typically means it has plenty of staff and is a quality place to live on a permanent basis. After considering the quantity of care provided by nurses, we then analyzed the nursing home's vaccination record. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents for pneumonia, which is what we like to see. Pneumonia sadly can be a deadly health condition for nursing home residents so we like it when a nursing home doesn't take any chances. Finally, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This facility is also strong in the area of nursing, where it received a grade of B+. It outperformed most nursing homes in this category. There are a variety of factors included in this grade. Most of these datapoints reflect the quantity of nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0.7 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 facility has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can generally be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

Moving on to the last area, this facility was given a highly favorable short-term care rating. We gave it a B+ in that category, rounding out one of our more favorable report cards. Short-term care grades are generally used to assess a facility's performance with rehabilitation. In order to provide quality rehabilitation services, facilities generally need to offer better levels of skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists and other licensed professionals. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the information this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final statistic we considered in this area is the percentage of residents who returned home from the nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.