Riverview at the Park Care and Rehabilitation Center

While we were not very complementary of this facility's overall grade, it actually received a very impressive inspection report this year. In fact, it received an excellent inspection report this year. As a result, it earned one of our best scores in that category with an A-. Arguably the most critical factor we consider in computing our inspection scores is deficiencies. Deficiencies can be found on a nursing home's inspection reports. It is generally best to avoid facilities that have a long list of severe deficiencies. While this place had some deficiencies on its inspection report, none were serious based on CMS' deficiency scale. A few minor deficiencies are not the end of the world.

This nursing home's long-term care grade is one of its best scores. The nursing home was awarded a C in this category. For patients looking for a permanent place to live rather than skilled nursing, long-term care is an important category. After considering the amount of nursing care, we turned to the facility's vaccination statistics. Candidly, we were a bit worried that this facility vaccinated a relatively low 83.950615 percent of its patients against pneumonia. Nevertheless, this facility also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 1.21 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a much lower hospitalization rate than the majority of nursing homes.

This facility ended up receiving rock bottom score in our nursing category. It received an F in this category. Nursing grades are based largely on levels of nurse staffing. This facility averaged a meager 2.6 hours of nursing care per resident daily. This number is well below the national average. To go along with its subpar totals in the area of nursing hours per resident, this facility also did not fare as well in the quality-based measures we looked at in computing our nursing grades. We looked at the percentage of patients sustaining pressure ulcers and major falls. This place had more falls and pressure ulcers than the average nursing home. This could be a bad sign when you consider that many falls and bed sores are believed to be preventable with better nursing care. Unfortunately, these metrics hurt this facility's nursing grade significantly.

Switching gears to the last area, this facility did not perform very well in this area either. Due to a poor grade of F in short-term care, this is about as as uninspiring as it gets. Our short-term care ratings are presumably most important for residents in need of a nursing home for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally mandates additional highly-skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing means not just nursing services, but also physical and occupational therapy, as well as other types of therapy. Not surprisingly, we learned that this nursing home provides significantly less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per patient than the typical facility. The last metric we considered in this area is the number of patients who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We discovered that just 33.9 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home, which is well below average. The combination of these poor metrics doomed this nursing home's short-term care score.