Michigan Veterans Home of Chesterfield Township

Although we did not have many favorable things to say about this nursing home's overall grade, it did receive a somewhat respectable inspection report this year. It received a decent score in that area with a B-. We would argue that one of the most important factors in assessing an inspection report is deficiencies. In this regard, we especially focus on the severity of the deficiencies. Unfortunately, it does not look like we were able to find deficiency data for this nursing home. Finally, 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.

We also ended up giving this facility a fairly respectable grade in the area of nursing, where it received a grade of B-. Our nursing rating includes several components, many of which are based on levels of nurse staffing. This nursing home provided just 0 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a relatively low total compared with most other nursing homes. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based measures, such as preventing major falls. Despite not having the highest total nursing hours per resident, this place performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is typically an indicator that a place has quality controls in place. Some falls could be avoided if a nursing home provides enough nurses aids to assist its patients.

The third most favorable category we awarded this nursing home in any area came in the area of short-term care, where we gave it a B-. Our short-term care scores are presumably more critical for patients in need of rehabilitation services. Rehabilitation generally requires more highly-skilled nursing. This means not merely nursing, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other forms of therapy. In this place's case, we were surprised to learn that it actually provides less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per patient than the average facility. The hope is always that this does not adversely impact the quality of care. The final measure we considered in this area is the percentage of patients that ultimately were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that just 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home.

The last area we graded is long-term care. We awarded this nursing home a grade of B- in this category. Long-term care grades are based on a nursing home's amount of care. This includes a broad scope of personal care services, ranging from help with activities of daily living to routine healthcare services. On top of assessing the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility provided the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is more than most nursing homes. Lastly, this place was also able to limit hospitalizations. It had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.