Morning Star Care Center

To pair with a strong overall score, we awarded this facility an A for inspections. Inspection ratings account for several factors found on a nursing home's inspection reports. One key criteria we weigh heavily is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with better scores in this category generally have very few of these severe deficiencies. This place received 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe deficiencies. This tells you that CMS didn't consider any of the deficiencies to create an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Adding to its strong profile, this nursing home also was awarded an excellent long-term care grade, with a score of A. Nursing homes that receive this type of score in long-term care tend to provide consistent around the clock care to ensure patients are kept in good health. Once we looked at the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we then looked at the facility's vaccination record. This facility vaccinated 92.66055 percent of its residents against pneumonia, which happens to be a bit less than we expected but still a reasonably acceptable figure. Lastly, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This facility also excelled in the area of nursing, where it received a grade of A-. Few nursing homes performed better in this area. The nursing grade consists of several subcategories, most of which are associated with levels of nurse staffing. This particular nursing home provided 0.6 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This place 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 typically be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

The last area we analyzed was short-term care, where this facility was awarded a B+. This finished off a very strong profile. Only a select few facilities earned a B+ or higher in every category. Short-term care grades are often employed to score a facility's performance with rehabilitation. To offer highly rated rehabilitation services, facilities generally need to feature better levels of highly skilled nursing services. These types of services include registered nurses, physical therapists, respiratory therapists and other licensed professionals. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not all facilities employs these types of nurses. However, according to the data they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final metric we considered in this area is the percentage of residents that returned home from the facility. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.