Thornwald Home

This facility received a quality overall score as described above, but we especially would like to point out its excellent inspections in recent years. We gave it an A in this area. Our inspection ratings are tied to several pieces of information located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that excel in this category tend to have few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these places should not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. Fortunately, although this nursing home had some minor dings on its report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you that the government inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Adding to its impressive profile, this nursing home also excelled in the area of nursing. We awarded it a grade of B+ for that category. Nursing grades are largely associated with the facility's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.4 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 frequently be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

In addition, this facility also was awarded favorable long-term care scores this year. Indeed, we awarded it one of our stronger scores in that category, with a score of B+. For patients looking for a permanent residence as opposed to rehabilitation, long-term care grades are very important. On top of assessing the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home vaccinated 89.96282 percent of its patients, which is a bit less than we expected. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

Turning to the last area, this nursing home received a highly favorable short-term care score. This nursing home did not turn out to have any weak areas. In the area of short-term care, we attempt to evaluate indicators of a facility's rehabilitation. We analyze the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses and physical therapists. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Finally, we considered the percentage of patients that were able to return home from this nursing home. We found that 4.8 percent of this facility's residents returned home.