Shepherd of the Valley Howland

In addition to a phenomenal overall grade, this facility also received A+ nursing grade. Our nursing rating assesses the nursing home's nurse staffing levels. We factor in both the levels of training of the nurses as well as the number of hours spent with residents. This facility provided 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics and this place excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any facility Ohio in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as having a policy of turning patients even once per day.

This facility has received near flawless health inspections in recent years. We awarded them an impressive grade of A in this category. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in computing our inspection scores. One key factor is deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of the deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some deficiencies can be relatively insignificant. While this nursing home had a few minor dings on its report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means that the government inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Keep in mind that deficiency-free inspections are uncommon in the industry.

Turning to another strength for this facility, we awarded them one of our higher scores in our short-term care category as well, with a B+. In calculating our short-term care ratings, we look at a nursing home's levels of skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists occupational therapists and other highly trained professionals. This area is considered to be a reliable measure of a nursing home's rehabilitation services. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final statistic we considered in this area is the number of patients that were able to return home from the facility. We found that 4.9 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

Turning to our next area, this nursing home also performed well in our long-term care category. In fact, we gave it a grade of B+ for that category. This rounded out a first-rate profile. Facilities that excel in this category typically provide patients with more supervision and stay on top of routine medical care. One of the statistics we considered on top of nursing hours is vaccines. This facility administered the pneumonia vaccination to 100 percent of its patients. Vaccination is a proven method to minimize unnecessary deaths for the aged 65 and up population. Finally, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.