Rice Estate

In addition to being a great overall grade, this facility also received A+ health inspections in recent years. Its inspections were virtually flawless. Perhaps the most critical factor we look at in calculating our inspection grades is deficiencies. These deficiencies can be found on a facility's inspection reports. Nursing homes with better scores in this area most likely avoided the most severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. Although this place had some deficiencies on its inspection report, none of them were serious based on CMS' scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Adding to its fine profile, this nursing home also received a superb short-term care score, with a score of A. Our short-term care ratings are considered to be most important for folks needing a nursing home for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically requires additional highly-skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes not just nursing services, but also physical and occupational therapy, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last metric we assessed in this category is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We found that 6.1 percent of this facility's patients returned home.

This facility also was given a strong long-term care score. This actually ended up being this facility's third most impressive category grade. In that area, we gave this facility a grade of A. Nursing homes that receive this kind of score in long-term care tend to provide consistent around the clock care to ensure residents are well cared for. On top of looking at the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home provided the vaccine to 99.41521 percent of its patients, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia is often a life threatening ailment for nursing home patients so we like it when a facility does not leave its residents vulnerable. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

In our last area, this facility also was awarded an excellent nursing grade, with an A. This rounded out a straight A profile. The nursing rating is based on quite a few components, however, the primary consideration is the quantity of nurse hours per patient per week. This nursing home provides 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at some quality-based measures in this category. This place fared well in some of the quality measures we assessed. By way of illustration, in terms of the percentage of its residents suffering from pressure ulcers, this place performed better than the national average. This is generally an indicator that a facility has reliable quality controls in place. Pressure ulcers can often be prevented with better nursing care.