Saratoga Care Center

One of the reasons this turned out to be a quality nursing home is it received a very impressive short-term care rating. In fact, short-term care turned out to be its best category. In that category, we gave this nursing home an A. Short-term care grades are based on a nursing home's quantity of skilled skilled healthcare professionals. This means a broad range of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the data they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last datapoint we considered in this area is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We found that 0 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home.

In addition, this nursing home also performed well in inspections, which is based on its recent inspection reports. We gave it an A for that area. Inspection ratings account for a host of factors included in a facility's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we weigh heavily is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with higher grades in this area tend to have few severe deficiencies. This facility received 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered to be major deficiencies. This means that the inspectors didn't consider any of these deficiencies an immediate risk to patient health or safety. The fact that none of the deficiencies were severe made us feel better about this inspection report.

This facility received a very good nursing grade this year as well. It received one of our better scores in that category with a grade of B+. Nursing ratings are tied to levels of nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0.4 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 facility has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can many times be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

Turning to the next area, we awarded this facility a D in the area of long-term care. This was the nursing home's weakest category grade. However, we wouldn't dwell on one bad area. For prospective patients in need of a permanent place to live rather than skilled nursing, long-term care grades are an important measure. After we finished assessing the amount of care provided by nurses, we then analyzed the nursing home's vaccination record. We were pleased to find that this facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents against pneumonia. To our surprise, this place also fared well at keeping its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had just 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days. Sadly, some of its other scores in the category weren't as favorable as these.