Salem North Healthcare Center

This nursing home earned a solid overall grade as described above, but we really wanted to emphasize its nearly flawless government inspections in recent years. We gave them an A in this category. These inspection ratings weigh several factors, including deficiencies, substantiated complaints and federal fines. You can learn more about each of these issues by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. This place received 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe deficiencies. This means that the government inspectors didn't deem any of these deficiencies an immediate threat to resident safety or health. A few minor deficiencies should not stop you from considering a nursing home.

This facility's next most favorable category is its short-term care score, where it received a grade of B-. In our short-term care score, we strive to forge a valuable gauge for rehabilitation services. In doing so, we analyze a nursing home's offerings of skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as occupational therapy. We were surprised to find that this place was below average in the two key staffing areas we focus on. The facility supplied fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than most other nursing homes. It is still important to determine whether this is adversely impacting the quality of care. Finally, we considered the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 5.9 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most nursing homes, closer to half of their patients are able to return home so this figure is below average.

The third category we graded was long-term care. This facility's received an abysmal long-term care grade where it was given an F. For residents in need of a permanent residence as opposed to rehabilitation, long-term care grades are an important measure. In addition to assessing the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 96.682465 percent of its residents. Surprisingly, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. With only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this facility had less hospitalizations than most nursing homes. Unfortunately, some of its other scores in this category were not as favorable as these.

The final area we scored is nursing. Sadly, it received a lowly F for this area, which is a rock bottom score. This is certainly a significant concern. The nursing score analyzes several components, but the primary consideration is the number of nurse hours spent with patients. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low total compared to most nursing homes. On top of receiving below average scores for total nursing hours, this facility was a bit less impressive in some of the quality-based metrics we looked at in computing our nursing ratings. We looked at the percent of residents sustaining pressure ulcers and found that this facility was at approximately 1.5 times the national average in this statistic.