Shields Nursing Center

On top of receiving a great overall score, this facility excelled in nursing. We awarded it an A for that area. The nursing score weighs many subcategories. The most important one is the number of hours nurses spent with patients. This particular nursing home provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures 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 the nation in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as by having a system of moving patients even once per day.

Adding to its strong profile, this nursing home also excelled in our long-term care category. In fact, we awarded it a score of A in the area. Long-term care ratings in this range generally require both 24/7 care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine healthcare services. In addition to considering the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is much higher than the average nursing home. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

In addition, this nursing home also received excellent inspections in recent years. We awarded it one of our best grades in that category, with an A. Inspection grades weigh a host of factors included in a nursing home's inspection report. One key criteria we look at is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with better scores in this category typically have very few of these severe deficiencies. While this place had a few deficiencies on its government inspection report, none of them were serious based on CMS' deficiency scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Moving on to the last category, this facility also performed well in our short-term care category. We awarded it an A- for this area. This rounded out a straight A profile. In determining our short-term care ratings, we assess the facility's levels of skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists speech therapists and other highly trained professionals. This category is considered to be a solid assessment of the facility's rehabilitation services. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not all facilities employs these types of nurses. However, based on the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final item we assessed in this area is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We found that 4.7 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home.