Sterling Village

We also found that this nursing home excelled in long-term care. We gave them an A+ in this category. If you are looking for anything other than short-term rehabilitation, you should take a close look at each nursing home's long-term care ratings. Once we finished looking at the quantity of care provided by nurses, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination data. This nursing home vaccinated 60 percent of its residents against pneumonia. While its vaccination rate was a bit lower than we like to see, at least this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Turning to our inspection category, this facility excelled in that area, which is based on the nursing home's recent inspections. We awarded it a grade of A for that category. Perhaps the most significant factor we look at in determining our inspection grades is deficiencies. Deficiencies are found on a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes with higher grades in this category most likely avoided the most severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. Fortunately, although this place had some minor dings on its report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are labeled as categories G through L. This means that the inspectors didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Another one of this facility's impressive category grades came in the area of nursing care. We awarded them one of our better scores in that area, with a grade of B. Nursing scores are mostly associated with a facility's level of nurse staffing. This particular nursing home provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This place 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 many times be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

The final area we looked at was short-term care. This nursing home was awarded a better than average nursing grade in our assessment, with a B. Even though this is not as elite as several of its other category grades, this remains one of the stronger grades in this category. Our short-term care grades are likely most critical for individuals needing a nursing home for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually mandates more highly-skilled nursing. This means not only nursing, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not all facilities employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the data they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final item we assessed in this area is the number of residents who who were able to eventually return home from the facility. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.