Northbrooke Health Care Center

Northbrooke Health Care Center is one of six available facilities located in Jackson, Tennessee. We awarded this nursing home an overall rating of B, which is an above average grade. As a matter of fact, this is actually one of the three highest graded nursing homes in the city. In our view, this facility looks like a good fit for most people. This facility's strong report card was highlighted by its inspection grade, which we will address in the next section.

One of the reasons this turned out to be a quality facility is that it received an impressive inspection score. In fact, inspections is its best category grade. In that category, we gave it an A+. Inspection scores account for several factors found on a nursing home's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we consider is the number and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better scores in this category usually have very few of these severe deficiencies. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

We also awarded this facility a grade of A- for our long-term care grade. Long-term care grades of this caliber generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine medical care. In addition to looking at the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home administered the vaccine to 99.672134 percent of its patients, which is far higher than most nursing homes. Finally, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. With only 1.7 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this nursing home has fewer hospitalizations than most nursing homes.

This nursing home's next best category was nursing. We awarded it a grade of B- in this category. While this wasn't quite as good as some of its other category grades, this isn't a bad score either. There are a variety of criteria included in this category. Many of these criteria reflect the quantity and quality of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 3.3 hours of nursing care per patient on a daily basis. This is a lower figure than we were hoping for. Lastly, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as preventing major falls. Despite not having the highest total nursing hours per resident, this facility performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is often a reliable indicator that a facility has sufficient quality controls in place. Some falls can be avoided if a nursing home supplies enough nurses aids to assist its patients.

Switching gears to our final category, this nursing home received a grade of C in short-term care, which is generally a decent score. In calculating our short-term care grades, we size up a nursing home's levels of skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists respiratory therapists and other licensed professionals. This rating is often a useful measure of a nursing home's ability to rehabilitate patients. Fortunately, this nursing home offers both physical therapists and registered nurses. Not all facilities offer both. The last metric we considered in this area is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We discovered that just 41.5 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home, which is actually below average.