West Orange Center

One of the reasons this turned out to be a quality facility is that it received a very impressive inspection score. Inspections is its best category. In that area, we awarded it an A. Inspection grades are tied to pieces of information found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes that score well in this category tend to have very few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these nursing homes generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. This facility received 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be severe deficiencies. This indicates that CMS didn't consider any of the deficiencies to cause an immediate risk to resident health or safety. Keep in mind that deficiency-free inspections are uncommon in the industry.

Another one of this nursing home's above average category scores came in the area of long-term care. We awarded them one of our stronger scores in that area, with a score of B. When facilities receive a grade in this range in this category it generally means it has plenty of staff and is an overall good place to live on a permanent basis. Once we assessed the quantity of care provided by nurses, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination records. This nursing home vaccinated 94.405594 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia tragically can be a life threatening health condition for nursing home residents so we like it when a facility does not leave this to chance. Lastly, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had only 0.04 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

We also gave this facility a middle of the road score in the category of short-term care, with a B-. In forming these short-term care scores, we assess the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. The purpose is to devise a tool for comparing the rehabilitation services of various nursing homes. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we assessed the percentage of residents who ultimately were able to return home from this facility. We found that 4.8 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home. This figure was well below the national average.

Our next area is nursing, where we awarded this facility a C in that area. There are a variety of subcategories included in this area. Most of the factors are tied to nurse staffing. This nursing home averages just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low figure. Finally, our nursing scores also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. Although this nursing home did not have as many nursing hours per resident as many other facilities we assessed, it was still better than average in the area of preventing falls. This is usually a reliable indicator of how carefully a nursing home's nursing staff is tending to its residents. Major falls can generally be avoided if more nurses aids and safety protocols are in place.