Powerback Rehabilitation, Route 73

In addition to receiving a great overall grade, this nursing home excelled in our shot-term care category. In fact, we awarded it a grade of A for that category. In determining our short-term care scores, we size up a facility's levels of highly skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists occupational therapists and other highly skilled individuals. This rating is frequently a fair assessment of the nursing home's ability to rehabilitate patients. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home 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 looked at the percentage of patients who eventually returned home from this facility. We found that 6.1 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

One of the other reasons we graded this facility so highly is that it received a very impressive nursing grade. In that area, we gave this facility a grade of A. Nursing ratings are tied to levels of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 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 typically be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

This facility has earned near flawless inspections in recent years. We gave them an impressive grade of A- in this category. Perhaps the most significant factor we look at in determining our inspection scores is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a nursing home's inspection reports. Facilities with better grades in this category most likely avoided the more severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. 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. Even some of the best nursing homes receive an occasional ding on their inspection report.

The final category we analyzed was long-term care. This nursing home was given an impressive long-term care score this year, with a C. Even though this wasn't as impressive as some of its other grades, this is nevertheless a respectable score for this category. In our long-term care assessment, we analyze the sheer volume of care provided by a nursing home, along with a series of quality statistics. In addition to assessing the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. We weren't able to track down this place's vaccination data. Finally, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.