Ripley Crossing

To go along with its great overall score, we awarded this facility an A for inspections. Arguably the most important factor we consider in calculating our inspection ratings is deficiencies. Deficiencies are found on a nursing home's inspection reports. Nursing homes with better scores in this category typically avoided the more severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. This facility was hit with 7 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered severe. This indicates that the inspectors didn't deem any of these deficiencies to pose an imminent risk to patient safety or health. The fact that the deficiencies were relatively minor leaves us less concerned with this inspection report.

We also wanted to emphasize the fact that this facility received an impressive grade of A in our nursing category. Our nursing grade is largely associated with the facility's nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also assessed some nursing quality-based metrics in determining our nursing grades. This facility performed very well when it comes to avoiding major falls and pressure ulcers. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

This facility also was superb in the category of long-term care, where we gave it a score of A-. Only a select group of nursing homes fared better in this category. Long-term care ratings in this range generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine healthcare services. Once we assessed the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination records. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents against pneumonia. Vaccines are vital to keeping patients healthy. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

The last category we scored was short-term care. This facility was awarded an impressive nursing score this year, with a grade of B. Although this was not nearly as dominant as some of its other scores, this is still one of the stronger scores in that area. Our short-term care scores are considered to be more meaningful for people requiring rehabilitation services. Rehabilitation generally mandates more highly-skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes not just nursing, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. However, based on the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last measure we considered in this category is the percentage of patients that eventually returned home from the nursing home. We found that 4.6 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.