Tamc - Aroostook Medical Center

On top of receiving a strong overall score, this nursing home also earned an A+ inspection rating. This score is based on the facility's recent inspection reports. An A+ in this category is one of the best complements we can pay to a nursing home. Arguably the most significant factor we look at in computing our inspection ratings is deficiencies. Deficiencies are found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes with better grades in this area most likely dodged the more severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. While this place had some deficiencies on its government inspection report, none of them were serious based on CMS' deficiency scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Adding to its impressive resume, this nursing home also excelled in our nursing category. In fact, we awarded it a grade of A for that category. Nursing grades are largely tied to a nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics and this place 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 state 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 policy of moving residents more frequently.

Turning our next category, we gave this nursing home a grade of A for its long-term care score. This is a dominant score. Long-term care ratings in this range generally require both 24/7 care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine medical care. One of the criteria we considered in addition to nurse's aid hours was vaccines. This nursing home provided the pneumonia vaccine to 94.81482 percent of its residents. Vaccination is a proven method to avoid unnecessary deaths and hospitalizations for the senior population. Finally, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

Turning to our final category, this nursing home also excelled in our short-term care category. We awarded it a grade of A- in this area. This wrapped up truly elite profile. Our short-term care grades are considered to be most meaningful for folks needing rehabilitation from their nursing home. Rehabilitation generally requires more skilled nursing. Skilled nursing means not merely nursing, but also physical and occupational therapy, as well as other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. However, based on the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final metric we considered in this category is the percentage of residents that were able to return home from the facility. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.