Preston Residence

To go along with its strong overall grade, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A+ for its nursing grade. There are a variety of factors included in this area. Many of the datapoints are tied to the quantity and quality of nurse staffing. This particular nursing home provided 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics and this facility excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place the nation in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can typically be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as by having a policy of turning a resident at least once a day.

Another reason we assessed this facility so favorably is that it was awarded an A+ short-term care grade. This is simply as dominant as it gets in this area. Short-term care grades are generally employed to grade a facility's rehabilitation services. In order to have highly rated rehabilitation services, facilities generally need to have higher levels of skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists and other types of therapists. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the data they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we considered the number of patients that who were able to eventually return home from this nursing home. We found that 6.7 percent of this facility's residents returned home.

Another impressive feature of this facility is its inspection rating. In that area, we gave this facility an A-. Inspection scores take several factors into consideration, including deficiencies and federal fines. You can find more information about each of these items by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. 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 area we scored ended up being this nursing home's worst category. Nevertheless, even in its worst category we still awarded it a decent grade of B- in long-term care. In a long-term care environment, the nursing home's primary objective is to maintain patients' quality of life and keep them safe. After considering the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we turned to the nursing home's vaccination data. Frankly, we were a bit alarmed this nursing home vaccinated 57.142857 percent of its residents for pneumonia, which happens to be quite a bit lower than average. On a more positive note, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.