Mystic Meadows Rehab & Nursing Center

One of the reasons this ended up being a quality nursing home is that it earned a very impressive inspection grade. Inspections turned out to be its best category. In that area, we awarded this nursing home an A. Our inspection ratings account for a host of factors included in a nursing home's inspection report. One key criteria we consider is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better grades in this area typically have very few severe deficiencies. While this nursing home had a few minor dings on its report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G through L. This tells you the 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.

On the list of its many high-end scores, this facility was given an excellent long-term care score. In fact, we gave it a score of A- in that area. Facilities that receive this kind of grade in long-term care typically provide consistent around the clock care to ensure patients are well cared for. After looking at the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we turned to the nursing home's vaccination record. This facility vaccinated 80.54711 percent of its residents against pneumonia, which happens to be slightly lower than we expected but still a decent percentage. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

The third area we analyzed was short-term care. This nursing home was awarded an impressive short-term care grade, with a B in the category. Our short-term care grades are considered to be most critical for those needing rehabilitation from their nursing home. Rehabilitation usually requires more highly-skilled nursing services. This includes not merely nursing, but also physical and occupational therapy, as well as other types of therapy. We were not able to track down registered nurse or physical therapy staffing data for this facility. Lastly, we considered the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 5.5 percent of this facility's patients returned home.

The next category we rated is nursing. We awarded this nursing home one of our higher scores in this category, with a grade of B. While this was not as dominant as some of this facility's other grades, it is still a perfectly acceptable score. There are several criteria within this area. Many of these factors relate to the quantity and quality of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 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 nursing home 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.