The Evergreens

In addition to being a great overall grade, this facility also received A+ health inspections in recent years. Its inspections were virtually flawless. Inspection grades take several factors into consideration, including deficiencies and federal fines. You can learn more about each of these issues by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. 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.

An additional reason we graded this facility so favorably is that it received an A+ short-term care score. This is flat out as good as it gets in this area. Short-term care scores are important for people in need of rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually mandates additional highly-skilled nursing services. This means a wide range of services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, this nursing home offers both physical therapists and registered nurses. Not all facilities offer both. Lastly, we considered the percentage of patients who who were able to eventually return home from this facility. We found that 8.1 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home.

Turning our next category, this facility was given an excellent long-term care score. In fact, it received a grade of A in this category. Long-term care grades in this range generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine healthcare services. After we finished looking at the quantity of care provided by nurses, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination statistics. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its residents for pneumonia, which is what we like to see. Pneumonia is too frequently a life or death condition for nursing home residents so we like it when a facility does not leave this to chance. Finally, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Turning to the next area, this facility was given a high-end nursing grade. In fact, we gave it an A- in that category, giving this facility straight A's. There are a variety of criteria included in this category. Most of these subcategories relate to nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0.6 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also looked at certain nursing quality measures in computing our nursing grades. These include minimizing residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. We view these areas as predictive indicators of the quality of nursing care being provided, since better care tends to reduce these problems.