N J Eastern Star Home

To go along with its strong overall score, we awarded this place an A+ for our inspections rating. Our inspection grades weigh several factors included in a facility's inspection reports. One key criteria we weigh heavily is the number and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with higher scores in this category typically have very few of these severe deficiencies. While this nursing home had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means CMS did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. We should note that deficiency-free inspections are rare in this industry.

Another reason we rated this nursing home so highly is that it received an A+ nursing grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this category. Our nursing grade is mostly based on the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This facility provided 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures and this place excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place New Jersey in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as by employing a system of moving residents at least once a day.

Moving on our next category, this nursing home was awarded a strong short-term care grade. In fact, we awarded it a grade of A in this area. In crafting these short-term care ratings, 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 purpose is to devise a barometer for comparing the rehabilitation services of nursing homes. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not all facilities employs these types of nurses. However, based on the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Lastly, we considered the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 5 percent of this facility's patients returned home.

The last category we rated was long-term care, in which this facility was given a grade of B. This actually is this nursing home's weakest category. A nursing home could be doing a lot worse when their poorest score still rates higher than most other nursing homes. Long-term care grades in this range generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine medical care. One of the factors we considered on top of nursing hours is vaccinations. This facility administered the pneumonia vaccination to 99.53704 percent of its patients. Vaccination is a reliable method to avoid unnecessary deaths and hospitalizations for the elderly population. 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 number.