Sunnybrook Rehabilitation Center

Although we didn't give this place a good overall grade, we actually gave it a relatively strong grade in the category of inspections, where it received a B. Perhaps the most significant factor we consider in determining our inspection scores is deficiencies. These deficiencies can be found on a nursing home's inspection reports. It is generally in your best interest to avoid nursing homes that had a long list of severe deficiencies. While this facility had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you CMS didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. A couple minor deficiencies aren't necessarily the end of the world.

This nursing home actually received a decent grade in the area of nursing as well. We awarded it a grade of C for that category, which is not a bad score. Our nursing score is primarily tied to the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home averages just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low figure. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this place fared better in some of the quality measures we assessed. In fact, it performed well in the area of avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls.

This nursing home's third most favorable area turned out to be its short-term care grade, where it was given a C. In computing these short-term care scores, we quantify the facility's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The objective is to devise a tool for sizing up the rehabilitation services of different facilities. Unfortunately, we found that this place provided fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other nursing homes. The key is determining what effect this had on quality of care. Lastly, we looked at the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 4.7 percent of this facility's patients returned home. At most nursing homes, closer to half of their residents are able to return home so this figure is below average.

The final area we graded was long-term care, which proved to be this nursing home's least impressive category. We gave this nursing home a D in this area. If you are seeking services other than short-term rehabilitation, you should take a close look at each facility's long-term care ratings. One of the criteria we considered in addition to nurse's aid hours was vaccinations. Thankfully, this nursing home administered the pneumonia vaccination to 98.76033 percent of its residents. To our surprise, this facility also fared well at keeping its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days. Sadly, some of its other scores in this category were not as favorable as these.