Salem Transitional Care

The main reason this facility received a decent overall score is its impeccable health inspections in recent years. We awarded it one of our higher grades in that area, with a grade of A-. This is a notably better score than the facility's overall grade, which was decent but certainly not elite. Our inspection grades are tied to datapoints found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Facilities that excel in this area tend to have few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these places generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. This facility was assessed 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be severe. This tells you that the government inspectors did not deem any of these deficiencies to be an immediate threat to resident health or safety. We should point out that deficiency-free inspection reports are rare in the industry.

This nursing home also performed well in the category of short-term care, with a very impressive score of A- in this area. Our short-term care grades are considered to be most critical for individuals in need of rehabilitation from their nursing home. Rehabilitation generally requires more skilled nursing. Skilled nursing means not merely nursing, but also physical and occupational therapy, as well as other types of therapy. Unfortunately, it does not appear that this facility provided data regarding its registered nurse or physical therapy staffing. The last metric we considered in this area is the percentage of residents who returned home from the facility. We found that 6.6 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

This nursing home's third best area is long-term care. We awarded it a grade of C in this area. This is essentially a middle of the pack score in this category. In calculating our long-term care ratings, we analyze the nursing home's personal care services. After considering the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination statistics. We were optimistic to discover that this nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients against pneumonia. This nursing home keeps its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

The final area we graded is nursing. We awarded this nursing home a D in nursing, rendering this the nursing home's worst category grade. There are numerous data points included in this grade. Most of the criteria relate to levels of nurse staffing. This place provided just 0.4 hours of nursing care per patient on a daily basis. On top of its below average nursing hour totals, this place also received suboptimal marks in several of the quality-based metrics we considered in determining our nursing scores. We found that a higher percentage of this facility's patients experienced falls leading to serious injury.