Sidney Regional Medical Center-Extended Care

In addition to being a first rate nursing home overall, this facility also excelled in the area of nursing, where it received an A+. Few nursing homes performed better in this category. We looked at the skill-level of nurses working for the nursing home, as well as the quantity of time the nurses spent with patients, in computing our rating in this area. This nursing home provides 0.5 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.

This nursing home has received near flawless health inspections recently. We gave them an impressive grade of A in this area. Inspection scores weigh several factors, including deficiencies and federal fines. You can learn more about each of these factors by reviewing copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. While this nursing home had a few deficiencies on its government inspection report, none were major deficiencies based on CMS' deficiency scale. The fact that none of the deficiencies were severe made us feel better about this inspection report.

This facility also was awarded a favorable short-term care score. Indeed, we gave it an above average grade of B+ in this area. Our short-term care grades are presumably more meaningful for people needing rehabilitation services. Rehabilitation generally requires higher levels of skilled nursing. Skilled nursing means not just nursing, but also physical and occupational therapy, as well as other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. However, based on the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last datapoint we looked at in this category is the percentage of patients that eventually returned home from the facility. We found that 4.8 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

Moving on to the fourth area, this facility was awarded a strong long-term care rating. Even though this is not as dominant as several of its other scores, this remains one of our more favorable grades we offer. When nursing homes receive this type of score in long-term care it is a good sign for patient care and indicates that the facility is well-staffed with nurses aids. On top of considering the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients, which is very impressive. Pneumonia is often a deadly ailment for nursing home patients so we strongly prefer when a facility doesn't leave its residents vulnerable. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.