Scottdale Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center

In addition to faring well overall, this nursing home received even higher grades in the area of short-term care. In fact, it earned one of our best grades in that area with an A. In the area of short-term care, we endeavor to assess measures of a facility's rehabilitation. We look at a nursing home's skilled nursing services, including the ones performed by registered nurses and various therapists. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. However, according to the data they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Finally, we assessed the percentage of residents that returned home from this facility. We found that 5.6 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home.

Adding to its impressive profile, this facility also performed at a high level in the area of inspections. In fact, it earned a nearly flawless government inspection report this year. As a result, it earned one of our best grades in that area with an B+. Inspection scores account for a host of factors included in a facility's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we look at is the number and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with higher grades in this category tend to have few severe deficiencies. Fortunately, although this place had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G through L. This tells you that the government inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. A few minor dings aren't something to panic about.

This nursing home also received a strong nursing score. In fact, we awarded it an above average grade of B in this area. In calculating our nursing scores, we factor in both staffing levels and the training levels of those nurses. This nursing home provides 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 facility performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a place has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can many times be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

This nursing home's least impressive category was long-term care, which is the last area we looked at. It received an F in this category. In spite of multiple favorable scores in other areas, this grade is nevertheless somewhat of a concern so we would like to to point it out. In a long-term care setting, the facility's primary goal is to keep patients healthy and safe. This is different than skilled nursing or short-term care where the goal is to rehabilitate patients. One of the statistics we considered in addition to nursing hours was vaccines. Fortunately, this facility provided the pneumonia vaccine to 100 percent of its patients. To our surprise, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. With only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this facility has less hospitalizations than most nursing homes. Unfortunately, some of its other scores in the category were not as favorable as these.