The Gardens

In addition to being a great overall grade, this facility also received A+ health inspections in recent years. Its inspections were virtually flawless. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in determining our inspection scores. One key factor is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of the deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the number of deficiencies, as some of these can be quite insignificant. 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.

This facility also was awarded a fine long-term care grade. In fact, this is this facility's second strongest category grade. In that area, this facility received a grade of A-. When facilities receive this type of score in this category it is usually a good sign for patient care and suggests that the nursing home is well-staffed with nurses and aids. On top of looking at the volume of care provided by nurses and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients, which is very impressive. Pneumonia is often a life or death illness for nursing home residents so we like it when a facility does not take any chances. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

Contributing to its high-end assessment, this facility also was given a superb short-term care score, with a score of A-. Our short-term care grades are thought to be more important for folks in need of rehabilitation services. Rehabilitation generally utilizes more highly-skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes not merely nursing, but also physical and respiratory therapy, as well as other variations of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Lastly, we assessed the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 0 percent of this facility's patients returned home.

Switching gears to the last category, this nursing home received a strong nursing score. We gave it a B+ in that area, topping off one of our finer profiles. Our nursing grade weighs quite a few factors, but the most important consideration is the quantity of nurse hours spent with patients. This particular nursing home provided 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality measures and this nursing home 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 country in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can typically be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as having a protocol of turning patients more frequently.