Riverdale Center

Although we gave this facility a terrible overall grade, we gave it an A for our inspections rating. This grade is far more impressive than the facility's overall grade. Perhaps the most significant factor we look at in determining our inspection grades is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a nursing home's recent inspection reports. It is typically in your best interest to avoid nursing homes that have a long list of deficiencies. While this place had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you CMS did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. A few minor deficiencies are not necessarily the end of the world.

We also wanted to point out that this nursing home received an F for its nursing grade. Our nursing score is mostly tied to a facility's level of nurse staffing. This place offered only 0.2 hours of nursing care per resident each day. Finally, we also looked at some nursing quality-based metrics in determining our nursing grades. This facility performed well in the area of minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

The third category we graded is long-term care. This facility's was given a low-end long-term care grade where it was given an F. For patients seeking a permanent residence rather than rehabilitation, long-term care grades are a key measure. In addition to considering the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home provided the vaccine to 93.98148 percent of its patients, which is better than the vast majority of nursing homes. Surprisingly, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. With just 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this nursing home has fewer hospitalizations than the majority of nursing homes. Unfortunately, a few of its other scores in the category were not as favorable as these.

The next area we rated was short-term care. This nursing home was given an abysmal grade of F in this category. Short-term care grades are based on a facility's quantity of skilled nursing services. This means a wide spectrum of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, not to mention other types of therapy. Considering its score in this category, we were not surprised to find that this facility was well below average in terms of its quantity of registered nurse and physical therapy hours offered to its residents based on the metrics we assessed. Frankly, this was about what we expected to find. The final statistic we looked at in this area is the number of patients who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We discovered that just 4 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home, which is well below average. The combination of these subpar statistics doomed this nursing home's short-term care grade.