Solaris Healthcare Parkway

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a quality nursing home is that it received an A+ inspection grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this critical category. Inspection ratings weigh several factors found on a facility's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we look at is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with higher grades in this area usually have few severe deficiencies. Although this place had some deficiencies on its inspection report, none were major deficiencies based on CMS' scale. A few relatively minor dings aren't something to panic about.

To complement its dominant assessments in other areas, we awarded this facility a score of A- for our short-term care rating. Short-term care scores are vital for prospective residents in need of rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally mandates more highly-skilled nursing services. This means a wide spectrum of services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. This nursing home employs both physical therapists and registered nurses. Not all facilities employ these skilled professionals. Finally, we considered the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home, which as an area this facility performed much more favorably. We found that it outperformed the vast majority of facilities in this area with 58.7 percent of its residents returning home. This is a significantly higher rate than most nursing homes.

In addition, this facility also received favorable nursing grades this year. In fact, we awarded them one of our better scores in that area, with a grade of B+. We assessed the qualifications of nurses working for the nursing home, as well as the quantity of time the nurses spent with residents, in determining our score in this category. This nursing home provides 4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is better than what is offered by most facilities. Lastly, this place also excelled in several of the quality-based metrics we assessed. With less than five percent of its residents suffering from pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any nursing home the nation in this category.

The last category we analyzed is long-term care, where this facility received a grade of B. Believe it or not, this ended up being this nursing home's least impressive category. A nursing home is doing something right when their worst grade still rates higher than most other nursing homes. Long-term care scores in this range generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine healthcare services. On top of assessing the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients, which is far higher than the vast majority of nursing homes. Lastly, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. With just 1.05 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this facility has fewer hospitalizations than the average nursing home.