The Pearl at Kruse Way

The Pearl at Kruse Way is a small nursing home located in Lake Oswego, Oregon. This nursing home was awarded an A- overall, which is very favorable rating. We were so impressed with this nursing home that we ranked it in the top third of all nursing homes in the nation. The best part of this facility's strong profile is its short-term care rating. We discuss short-term care in the next paragraph

In addition to being a first-rate nursing home overall, this facility also excelled in our short-term care category, where it received a grade of A+. In computing our short-term care scores, we look at a nursing home's levels of skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists occupational therapists and other highly trained professionals. This category is considered to be a useful measure of the facility's rehabilitation. This nursing home is the gold standard in terms of skilled nursing staffing. The facility supplied about 1.5 times as many physical therapist and registered nurse hours per patient than the average facility. This is what we look for when grading a nursing home in this category. The final item we looked at in this area is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We found that it fared as well as just about any nursing home in Oregon in this area with 68.3 percent of its residents returning home. For most nursing homes, fewer than half of their short-term residents are able to return home.

Adding to its impressive category scores, this nursing home excelled in the area of inspections, where it received an A-. Few nursing homes performed as well in this area. Inspection ratings are tied to several datapoints located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Facilities that receive favorable grades in this area tend to have very few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these facilities should not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. While this facility had some deficiencies on its report, none were serious based on CMS' scale. Keep in mind that deficiency-free inspections are rare in this industry.

Adding to its strong resume, this facility also received an excellent nursing score, with a grade of A-. There are several subcategories included in this category. Most of the factors relate to the quantity of nurse staffing. This facility provides an incredible 5.3 hours of nursing care per resident on a daily basis. Very few nursing homes provide this quantity of nursing care to their patients. Out of this total, many of those hours were provided by registered nurses, which is one of the most highly trained levels of nurses. In addition to offering impressive levels of care, this place also excelled in the quality measures we assessed. For example, it performed as well as any facility in Oregon in the area of avoiding major falls and pressure ulcers. We view these areas as good measures of the caliber of nursing care being provided.

The last area we scored was long-term care. In that area, we gave this facility a decent grade of C. This actually ended up being this facility's worst area. For prospective residents seeking a permanent place to live rather than skilled nursing, long-term care grades are an important measure. Once we looked at the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination statistics. It doesn't look like this facility provided data regarding vaccinations. Finally, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.