The Terraces of Phoenix

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. These inspection scores take several factors into consideration, including deficiencies and federal fines. You can find more information about each of these factors by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. Fortunately, although this facility had a few minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means that CMS didn't deem 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.

We also awarded this nursing home a grade of A+ for its nursing grade. In determining our nursing ratings, we assess both nursing hours and the training levels of the nurses. This facility provided 5.3 hours of nursing care per resident on a daily basis, which is among the highest totals in the country. A significant percentage of those hours were provided by registered nurses, which are one of the most skilled levels of nurses. We are really impressed by both of these statistics. In addition to offering impressive levels of care, this place also excelled in the quality-based metrics we assessed. It performed as well as any nursing home in the nation in the area of avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls.

We also gave this facility a grade of of A+ for its long-term care grade. Nursing homes that excel in this category typically provide residents with closer supervision and stay on top of routine medical care. In addition to looking at the elite level of care provided by nurses aids and other staff at this nursing home, we also were impressed by the facility's vaccination statistics. This nursing home administered the pneumonia vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is very impressive. Finally, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Switching gears to the last area, this facility also received an A+ short-term care grade, leaving it as one of an elite group of facilities to receive straight A+'s. Our short-term care grades are based on a nursing home's quantity of highly-skilled skilled healthcare professionals. This includes a wide range of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, in addition to other types of therapy. This nursing home excelled in the two key staffing areas we looked at. In fact, it provided more care from physical therapists and registered nurses than a typical nursing home. The last datapoint we assessed in this category is the percentage of patients that returned home from the nursing home. We found that it fared as well as just about any facility in Arizona in this area with 65.7 percent of its patients returning home. With most nursing homes, fewer than half of their short-term residents are able to return home.