The Terrace of St Cloud

In addition to performing well in its overall grade, this nursing home performed at an even higher level in the area of inspections. In fact, it received a nearly flawless inspection report this year. As a result, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A-. Perhaps the most critical factor we consider in calculating our inspection scores is deficiencies. Deficiencies are found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Facilities with better grades in this category most likely dodged the more severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. This facility was hit with 2 deficiencies on its inspection report, but fortunately none were considered to be major deficiencies. This tells you that CMS didn't deem any of the deficiencies to pose an imminent risk to resident safety or health. We should point out that deficiency-free inspection reports are uncommon in this industry.

One of the other reasons we graded this facility so highly is that it received a very impressive nursing score. Nursing turned out to be its second best category grade. In that area, we gave this nursing home an B+. Our nursing score focuses on the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. We factor in both the levels of licensure of the nurses and the number of hours spent with patients. This facility provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed some nursing quality-based metrics in determining our nursing grades. This facility performed very well in terms of minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

Turning to an additional strength for this facility, we gave them one of our more favorable grades in our long-term care category as well, with a grade of B. Nursing homes that do well in this category tend to be well-staffed and offer extensive hands on care to residents. On top of assessing the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its residents, which is significantly higher than the average nursing home. Lastly, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. It had only 0.05 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

The final area we graded is short-term care. In that category, we gave this nursing home a B-. In our short-term care assessment, we attempt to create a meaningful measure for rehabilitation. In this process, we analyze the facility's offerings of highly-skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as speech therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. However, based on the information this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final measure we considered in this area is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the facility and return home. We discovered that just 3.8 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home, which is below average.