The Living Centre

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a quality nursing home is that it received an A+ inspection grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this critical category. Our inspection scores account for several factors included in a facility's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we rely on is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with higher scores in this area generally have few of these severe deficiencies. Although this place had a few deficiencies on its government inspection report, none of them were severe based on CMS' deficiency scale. We should point out that deficiency-free inspection reports are rare in the industry.

One of the other reasons we rated this nursing home so highly is that it earned a very impressive nursing score. In that category, we awarded this facility an A+. When computing our nursing grades, we analyze both staffing levels and the skill levels of the nurses. This facility provided 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 many times be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

The next category we analyzed was short-term care. This nursing home fared very well in our short-term care rating also. We gave them an elite grade of A+ in this category. In our short-term care grade, we endeavor to forge a fair measure for rehabilitation. In doing so, we assess the facility's scope of skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as respiratory therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we considered the percentage of patients that returned home from this facility. We found that 6.3 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home.

The final area we looked at was long-term care. We awarded this facility one of our more favorable scores in this category, with a B. Although this was not as strong as many of this facility's other scores, it is nevertheless a positive grade. Facilities that excel in this category typically provide residents with better supervision and stay on top of routine healthcare services. Once we concluded our assessment of the quantity of nursing care, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination record. This facility vaccinated 99.03846 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is what we like to see. Pneumonia is often a life threatening ailment for nursing home residents so we like it when a nursing home does not leave its residents vulnerable. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.