Sharon Towers

In addition to being a great overall grade, this facility also received A+ health inspections in recent years. Its inspections were virtually flawless. These inspection ratings weigh several factors, including deficiencies and substantiated complaints. You can find more information about each of these issues by reviewing copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. This nursing home received 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be severe deficiencies. This indicates that CMS didn't deem any of these deficiencies an immediate risk to resident health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

One of the other reasons we rated this facility so highly is that it earned a very impressive nursing rating. Nursing turned out to be its second best category grade. In that area, we gave this nursing home an A. There are numerous datapoints included in this category. Most of the criteria reflect levels of nurse staffing. This facility provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics and this nursing home excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any facility the state in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as by having a system of turning a patient at least once a day.

Adding to its fine resume, this facility also received a superb long-term care score, with a grade of A. If you are seeking anything other than rehabilitation, you should take a close look at each nursing home's long-term care grades. After considering the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination statistics. Unfortunately, it does not look like this facility provided information on its vaccination levels. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Moving on to our fourth category, this nursing home was given an excellent short-term care grade. We awarded it an A- in that area, rounding out a straight A profile. In the area of short-term care, we seek to qualify indicators of a facility's rehabilitation. We analyze a facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses and physical and occupational therapists. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. However, based on the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Finally, we looked at the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 4.9 percent of this facility's residents returned home.