Brookside Healthcare Center

Although we gave this facility a terrible overall score, we awarded it a B+ for our inspections rating. This is due to the facility receiving a decent government inspection report this year. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in computing our inspection scores. One of those factors is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of the deficiencies is arguably more important than the quantity of deficiencies, as some deficiencies end up being relatively insignificant. While this nursing home had some deficiencies on its report, none were serious based on CMS' deficiency scale. A few minor deficiencies are not necessarily the end of the world.

Unfortunately, this facility only received a grade of D for its nursing grade, which was actually one of its better category grades. Nursing grades are mostly based on a facility's level of nurse staffing. This facility offered only 0.3 hours of nursing care per patient per day. This is a very low total compared to most nursing homes. Lastly, we also assessed some nursing quality-based metrics in computing our nursing scores. This facility performed well when it comes to avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these datapoints to be indicators of the quality of nursing care.

The next area we graded was short-term care. This facility's was given a rock-bottom short-term care grade where it was given a lowly F. In the area of short-term care, we strive to evaluate measures of a facility's rehabilitation services. We look at a facility's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses and physical and occupational therapists. Given its grade in this category, we were not stunned to find that this facility is well below average in terms of the number of physical therapy and registered nurse hours offered to its residents based on the figures we looked at. Lastly, we assessed the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. This definitely wasn't a strength for this nursing home. We found that just 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most nursing homes, about half of their patients are able to return home so this is well below average.

The last area we looked at was long-term care, in which this facility was given a bottom of the barrel score in this area also. Sadly, it received an abysmal F in this category, which is obviously very concerning. Nursing homes that don't score well in long-term care often do not provide as much nursing care and also may be lagging in some of the areas of routine healthcare services we assessed. On top of looking at the volume of care provided by nurses and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. We discovered that this facility administered the vaccine to a relatively low 57.566765 percent of its patients, which is well below average. To our surprise, this facility was actually able to limit hospitalizations. With only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this nursing home had fewer hospitalizations than many nursing homes. This was its best score in this category.