Nazareth Living Center

This facility's best category score came in the area of nursing. In that category, we gave this nursing home a grade of B+. It outpaced most nursing homes in this category. There are a variety of criteria included in this area. Most of the factors reflect levels of nurse staffing. This facility provided 0.4 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 nursing home has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can generally be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

This nursing home also earned a strong inspection score. Inspection grades are based on the facility's recent government inspections. We gave this nursing home a B in this category. Perhaps the most significant factor we consider in computing our inspection scores is deficiencies. Deficiencies can be found on a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Facilities with higher grades in this area most likely dodged the most severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. This nursing home was assessed 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be severe deficiencies. This means that the government inspectors didn't consider any of these deficiencies to pose an immediate risk to resident safety or health. A couple minor deficiencies should not lead you to cross a nursing home off your list.

The third area we looked at was short-term care, where this nursing home was awarded a B- in this area. In the category of short-term care, we try to evaluate measures of a nursing home's rehabilitation services. We look at the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses and physical therapists. In this nursing home's case, we were surprised to learn that it actually provides less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per patient than a typical facility. The hope is that this does not adversely affect the quality of care. The final item we considered in this area is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We discovered that just 4.3 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home, which is actually below average.

Switching gears to the final category, we gave this nursing home a D for our long-term care category. This was the facility's least impressive category score. When facilities receive this type of score in long-term care it is often a bad sign for resident care and it may mean that the place is not as well-staffed. Once we assessed the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we then looked at the facility's vaccination data. Frankly, we were a bit bothered by the fact that this facility vaccinated 79.21569 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is several points below what we were hoping for. Surprisingly, this place was actually able to limit hospitalizations. With only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this nursing home had less hospitalizations than the average nursing home. This was its best feature in this category.