Rydal Park and Waters

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a great nursing home is that it received an A+ nursing grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this category. Our nursing grade is based on the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. We weigh both the levels of training of the nurses as well as the number of hours spent with patients. This facility provided 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics and this place excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place Pennsylvania in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can typically be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as having a policy of moving a patient more often.

Adding to its dominant profile, this facility also performed well in our long-term care category. In fact, we gave it a grade of A for that category. For prospective patients in need of a permanent residence rather than skilled nursing, long-term care is an important category. On top of considering the volume of care provided by nurses and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility vaccinated 84.70588 percent of its patients, which is a few points below what we anticipated. Although its vaccination rate was a bit lower than we hoped for, we were pleased to find place was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

The third category we assessed is short-term care. Contributing to its high-end resume, this nursing home also performed well in that category. In fact, it received a of A for the category. With our short-term care assessment, we strive to forge a sound barometer for rehabilitation. In this process, we assess a nursing home's levels of skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as occupational therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. However, according to the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last datapoint we considered in this area is the number of patients that ultimately were able to return home from the facility. We found that 5.7 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

Another impressive feature for this nursing home is its inspection rating. In that area, we awarded this nursing home an A-, wrapping up its straight A performance. Perhaps the most critical factor we consider in calculating our inspection scores is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Facilities with better scores in this category typically dodged the most severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. While this place had a few deficiencies on its government inspection report, none were major deficiencies based on CMS' scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.