Signature Healthcare at Tanbark Rehab & Wellness C

In addition to being a strong nursing home overall, this facility also excelled in our short-term care rating, where it received an A+. Few nursing homes fared better in this area. In determining these short-term care ratings, we look at the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The goal is to formulate a tool for comparing the rehabilitation services of various facilities. We were pleased to find that this nursing home employs both registered nurses and physical therapists. The same can't be said for all nursing homes. Finally, we assessed the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 6.3 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

This first-rate facility also excelled in the area of nursing, where it received a grade of A+. Few nursing homes performed better in this area. Our nursing rating is largely tied to a facility's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.6 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed 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 nursing home the country in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by employing a system of moving a patient at least once a day.

This nursing home also received a impressive long-term care score. In fact, this ended up being its third most impressive category score. In that category, we awarded this facility a score of A. For long-term care residents, the facility's primary objective is to keep patients as healthy and safe as possible. This is different than skilled nursing or short-term care where the goal is to rehabilitate residents. After assessing the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we next considered the facility's vaccination statistics. Unfortunately, it does not appear that this facility provided vaccination data. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

Finishing off this nursing home's impressive profile, we gave this facility an impressive grade of A for our inspections rating. With this grade, the facility completes its straight A report card. Our inspection scores weigh a host of factors found on a facility's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we rely on is the number and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better grades in this category usually have very few severe deficiencies. 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. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.