Shore Meadows Rehab & Nursing Center

In addition to being a respectable nursing home overall, this place also excelled in the category of inspections, where it received an A. Few nursing homes performed better in this category. Arguably the most significant factor we consider in computing our inspection ratings is deficiencies. These deficiencies can be found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes with better grades in this area typically dodged the most severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. 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.

One of the other reasons we graded this nursing home so highly is that it earned a very impressive nursing grade. In that area, we awarded this nursing home an B. The nursing score weighs many factors, however, the paramount one is the number of nurse hours per patient per week. This facility provided 0.3 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 often be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

We also awarded this nursing home a positive grade in long-term care. This nursing home earned a grade of B in this category, which happens to be one of our higher scores. For prospective patients seeking a permanent residence as opposed to rehabilitation, long-term care grades are a key measure. In addition to looking at the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 93.67816 percent of its residents, which is somewhat below what we were hoping for. Lastly, this nursing home 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.

This nursing home's least impressive category is short-term care, which is the final category we looked at. We gave it an abysmal F for this area. Despite several decent scores in other categories, this score is still alarming so we wanted to make a note of it. In the area of short-term care, we endeavor to assess indicators of a facility's rehabilitation services. We assess the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses and physical, occupational and other therapists. In this nursing home's case, we found that it provides less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than the average facility. Finally, we assessed the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. This definitely wasn't a strength for this facility. We found that just 2.9 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home. At most nursing homes, about half of their residents are able to return home so this is well below average.