Oakwood-North Baldwin's Center for Living

In addition to performing well overall, this facility earned a nearly flawless inspection report. As a result, it earned one of our highest grades in that category with an A+. Inspection grades are based on several items found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes that receive favorable grades in this category typically have few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these places should not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. This nursing home received 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered severe. This tells you that CMS did not consider any of these deficiencies to cause an immediate threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Adding to its superb profile, this nursing home also excelled in our long-term care area. In fact, we awarded it a grade of A in the category. Long-term care scores in this range generally require both 24/7 care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine medical care. On top of assessing the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility provided the vaccine to 99.61539 percent of its patients, which is very impressive. Pneumonia is often a life threatening ailment for nursing home patients so we strongly prefer when a facility doesn't leave this to chance. Lastly, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

We also wanted to alert you to the fact that this facility was awarded an impressive score of A in our short-term care area. With our short-term care category, we strive to forge a fair measure for rehabilitation. In this process, we assess a facility's levels of highly-skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as speech therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. However, based on the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last metric we assessed in this category is the percentage of patients that ultimately were able to return home from the facility. We found that 5.6 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

Turning to our fourth area, this nursing home was awarded a highly favorable nursing rating. We gave it a grade of B+ in this area, finishing off one of our better report cards. There are a variety of subcategories included in this grade. Many of the factors are tied to the quantity and quality of nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also factored a few quality-based metrics into our nursing grades. This nursing home was relatively weak in two of the major areas we focus on, with below average scores for minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. These areas are generally reliable indicators of the quality of nursing care provided.