North Star Manor

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a great nursing home is that it received an A+ nursing grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this category. When determining a nursing home's nursing score, we assess the amount of time nurses spend with patients and the level of skill of the nurses. This particular nursing home provided 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This facility 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.

This facility also received an A+ for its long-term care grade. Facilities that receive this kind of score in this category typically provide consistent around the clock care to make sure patients are well cared for. After looking at the volume of care provided by nurses and other staff, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination record. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is significantly higher than the average nursing home. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. It had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

Turning to our inspection category, this nursing home excelled in that area, which is based on the nursing home's recent government inspection reports. In fact, we gave it a grade of A- for that category. Our inspection scores weigh a host of factors found on a facility's inspection reports. One key criteria we look at is the number and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with higher scores in this area generally have few severe deficiencies. Fortunately, although this place had a few minor dings on its report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you the inspectors didn't deem 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.

In our last category, we gave this nursing home a grade of A- for its short-term care rating. This rounded out an elite report card. With our short-term care grade, we try to craft a fair barometer for rehabilitation. In doing so, we analyze the nursing home's level of highly-skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as speech therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all facilities employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the information they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we assessed the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.