The Gardens of Scottsdale

To go along with its strong overall grade, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A+ for our inspections rating. Perhaps the most critical factor we look at in calculating our inspection scores is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Facilities with higher grades in this category typically avoided the more severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. While this facility had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you the government inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent 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 fared very well in the category of long-term care, where it received a score of A. Very few nursing homes performed better in this category. Nursing homes that do well in this category typically are well-staffed and offer extensive hands on care to residents. Once we assessed the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we then analyzed the nursing home's vaccination record. This facility vaccinated 96.739136 percent of its residents against pneumonia, which is more than most nursing homes. Finally, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. It had only 0.02 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

We also would like to alert you to the fact that this nursing home was awarded an impressive grade of A- in our short-term care area. In determining our short-term care ratings, we look at the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. The purpose is to formulate a barometer for comparing the rehabilitation services of various facilities. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all facilities employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final measure we assessed in this category is the percentage of patients that ultimately were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that 5 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

Moving on to our next category, this nursing home received a strong nursing rating. We awarded it a B+ in this category, wrapping up one of our better profiles. Our nursing score focuses on the facility's level of nurse staffing. We weigh both the levels of training of the nurses as well as the amount of time spent with residents. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures 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 place Arizona in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as employing a policy of moving patients even once per day.