The Forum at Brookside

We also wanted to emphasize the fact that this facility excelled in our nursing rating. We awarded them an impressive grade of A+ in this category. We scrutinized the licensure of nurses employed by the nursing home, in addition to the quantity of time those nurses were with residents, in calculating our grade in this category. This nursing home provides 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This nursing home performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a nursing home has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can generally be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

This nursing home also received a virtually flawless inspection. As a result, it received one of our highest scores in that category with an A+. This was one of the few nursing homes to receive multiple A+'s. These inspection ratings weigh several factors, including deficiencies, substantiated complaints 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.

Turning our next category, this top-shelf facility also dominated in the category of long-term care. In this category, we awarded it a grade of A+. Very few facilities fared better in this area. Long-term care ratings in this range generally require both 24/7 care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine healthcare services. After we finished looking at the amount of care provided by nurses, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination record. This facility vaccinated 98.9011 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia is often a dangerous condition for nursing home residents so we prefer when a nursing home doesn't leave this to chance. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

In the last area, we awarded this facility a grade of A+ for its short-term care rating. This wrapped up a very impressive report card. In our short-term care grade, we endeavor to forge a meaningful barometer for rehabilitation services. In doing so, we assess a facility's level of skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as occupational therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. However, according to the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last datapoint we looked at in this area is the number of residents who were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that 5.7 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.