Quaker Heights Nursing Home

To go along with its relatively modest overall score, we gave this nursing home an A for our inspections rating. This grade is far more impressive than its overall score. Our inspection ratings weigh several factors found on a nursing home's inspection report. One key criteria we look at is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better grades in this area typically have few severe deficiencies. 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.

This facility also received an impressive score in our short-term care category. We awarded this nursing home a better than average grade of B in that area. Our short-term care grade is typically employed to grade a nursing home's performance with rehabilitation. In order to provide quality rehabilitation services, nursing homes generally must provide better levels of highly skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, respiratory therapists and other highly skilled individuals. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like this facility submitted information on registered nurse or physical therapist staffing. The final item we looked at in this area is the number of residents who who were able to eventually return home from the nursing home. We found that 6 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

This nursing home's nursing grade appears to be one of its better features. The facility received a grade of B- in this category. We weighed the qualifications of nurses employed by the nursing home, in addition to the quantity of hours those nurses were with patients, in calculating our rating in this area. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a much lower figure than we are used to seeing. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics. While this facility got dinged a bit for nursing hours, it actually excelled in some of these quality-based measures. With fewer than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it did very well in this subcategory. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as having a policy of turning residents more frequently.

Turning to our last category, we awarded this facility a D in our long-term care category. This was the nursing home's worst category grade. Of course, this score pulled down the nursing home's overall grade to some degree. When nursing homes receive this type of score in this category it is typically a bad sign for resident care and it may mean that the facility is not as well-staffed with nurses and aids. In addition to considering the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. Candidly, we were a bit concerned this facility gave the vaccine to just 90.547264 percent of its patients. Surprisingly, this nursing home was actually able to limit hospitalizations. With only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this nursing home has less hospitalizations than many nursing homes. This was its best feature in this category.