Norlite Nursing Center

On top of earning a strong overall grade, this nursing home performed well in our nursing category. We gave it an A+ for that category, which is one of our highest scores. We weighed the licensure of nurses at the nursing home, in addition to the number of hours those nurses spent with patients, in determining our score in this area. This nursing home provides 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 Michigan in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as employing a protocol of turning patients at least once a day.

Adding to its profile, this nursing home also received a grade of B+ for its short-term care rating. This is a well above average grade in this area. Short-term care scores are based on a nursing home's quantity of skilled skilled healthcare professionals. This means a wide range of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, in addition to other types of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. However, based on the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final metric we looked at in this area is the number of patients that returned home from the facility. We found that 4.6 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

Additionally, this nursing home also received favorable long-term care scores this year. Indeed, we gave them one of our stronger grades in that category, with a grade of B+. In a long-term care environment, the facility's primary objective is to keep patients healthy and safe. This is different than skilled nursing or short-term care where the goal is to rehabilitate patients. Once we assessed the amount of care provided by nurses, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination data. This facility vaccinated 92.578125 percent of its residents against pneumonia. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

Finally, turning to inspections, we gave this nursing home a grade of C. Our inspection rating is based on the facility's government inspection reports. Although this is not a bad grade, it is this facility's weakest link. We believe that one of the most critical factors in assessing an inspection report is deficiencies. We especially focus on the severity of the deficiencies. This facility was assessed 6 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to find that none were in any of the categories labeled G through L. This tells you inspectors didn't deem any of the deficiencies to create an imminent danger to resident safety or health. Unfortunately, we also need to draw your attention to the fact that this facility received significant government fines in recent years.