Scalabrini Villa

The main reason this turned out to be a decent nursing home is that it received an excellent inspection score. In fact, its inspection grade was far superior to its overall score. In the inspections category, we gave this facility an A-. Our inspection ratings account for several factors found on a nursing home's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we consider is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Nursing homes with higher scores in this area generally have few of these severe deficiencies. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Even some of the best nursing homes receive an occasional ding on their inspection report.

Another one of this facility's more impressive category grades was in the category of short-term care. In that category, we awarded this facility a B. It actually outperformed most facilities in this category. Short-term care scores are vital for individuals needing rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally requires more skilled nursing. This means a vast scope of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last item we looked at in this category is the number of patients who eventually returned home from the facility. We found that 5.4 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

This nursing home's next best category was nursing. We awarded it a grade of C in this category. This is basically a middle of the road grade in this category. In calculating our nursing scores, we assess both the number of hours nurses spend with residents and the skill levels of the nurses. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a much lower figure than we are used to seeing. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this place fared better in some of the quality measures we looked at. It performed well in terms of avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be good measures of the quality of nursing care. In many cases, the quality of nursing care is just as important as the quantity of hours of care offered.

The final category we looked at was long-term care. We gave this facility a D for our long-term care category, making this its worst category grade. For patients seeking a permanent residence as opposed to skilled nursing, long-term care grades are very important. One of the factors we considered on top of nurse's aid hours was vaccines. Fortunately, this nursing home provided the pneumonia vaccine to 95.37954 percent of its patients. To our surprise, this place also fared well at keeping its residents out of the hospital. It had just 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days. Sadly, a few of its other scores in the category were not as favorable as these.