Royal Middletown Nursing Center

This nursing home received a strong overall grade as described above, but we especially wanted to point out its excellent government inspections in recent years. We gave them an A- in this area. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in computing these inspection ratings. One key factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of the deficiencies is arguably more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some deficiencies end up being relatively insignificant. Fortunately, although this facility had some minor dings on its inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you CMS didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This facility was awarded high grades in the area of long-term care as well. In fact, it received one of our best scores in that area with a area of A-. For residents seeking a permanent residence rather than skilled nursing, long-term care grades are a key measure. Once we looked at the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then analyzed the nursing home's vaccination statistics. This nursing home vaccinated 89.13044 percent of its residents for pneumonia, which is a bit below what we expected but still a respectable percentage. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

In addition, this facility also was awarded favorable short-term care scores in our assessment. In fact, we awarded them one of our more favorable grades in that category, with a score of B+. In our short-term care score, we try to forge a fair measure for rehabilitation services. In this process, we analyze the facility's offerings of skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as respiratory therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last metric we looked at in this area is the number of patients who eventually returned home from the nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

Switching gears to our fourth category, this facility received a highly favorable nursing rating. In fact, we awarded it a grade of B+ in this category, finishing off one of our more favorable profiles. We looked at the licensure of nurses working for the nursing home, in addition to the quantity of time those nurses spent with patients, in calculating our rating in this category. This facility provided 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This place performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a place has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can generally be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.