Oakridge of Plattsburg

While this facility received a decent overall grade, its inspections score is notably better than its overall score. Due to a strong inspection report this year, it received one of our better scores in that area with a grade of B+. Inspection grades weigh several factors, including deficiencies and federal fines. You can learn more about each of these factors by reviewing copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. While this facility had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means that the government inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. A couple relatively minor dings are not something to panic about.

This nursing home also was awarded a strong score in our long-term care category. We gave this facility a better than average grade of B in that category. Facilities that receive this type of score in this category typically provide consistent 24/7 care to make sure residents are kept in good health. In addition to looking at the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home vaccinated 98.58491 percent of its residents. Vaccines are critical to keeping patients out of the hospital. Lastly, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

The next highest grade we gave this nursing home in any area came in the category of nursing, where we gave it a grade of B-. We weighed the skill-level of nurses employed by the facility, in addition to the quantity of hours the nurses worked with residents, in calculating our rating in this category. This particular facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident on a daily basis. This figure is far below average. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this nursing home fared better in some of the quality-based metrics we looked at. It scored well in the area of minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be indicators of the quality of nursing care. In some cases, the quality of nursing care is just as important as the number of hours of care offered.

The final area we assessed was short-term care. For this category, we gave this facility a grade of B-. Short-term care grades are vital for residents requiring rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally mandates higher levels of skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes a wide spectrum of services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, as well as other types of therapy. We were not able to locate information on registered nurse or physical therapy staffing for this nursing home. Finally, we assessed the percentage of residents that ultimately returned home from this nursing home. We found that 5.1 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home. This figure was actually well below average.