Tiffany Heights

On top of being a quality nursing home overall, this place excelled in our inspections category, where it received an A+. Not many nursing homes fared better in that category. Inspection grades are based on datapoints located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Facilities that receive favorable grades in this category tend to have very few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these facilities should not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Even some of the best nursing homes receive an occasional ding on their inspection report.

In addition, this facility also received favorable long-term care scores this year. Indeed, we gave it one of our stronger grades in that area, with a score of B. Long-term care grades in this range generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine healthcare services. Once we looked at the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then analyzed the nursing home's vaccination data. This nursing home vaccinated 99.375 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is far higher than the average nursing home. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

We also awarded this facility a solid grade in the area of short-term care, with a grade of B-. Short-term care scores are crucial for people requiring rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually utilizes higher levels of highly-skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing means a wide range of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other types of therapy. Unfortunately, we were not able to find information on registered nurse or physical therapy staffing for this nursing home. The last metric we assessed in this area is the percentage of patients who eventually returned home from the nursing home. We found that just 0 percent of this facility's patients returned home.

The next category we looked at is nursing. This nursing home received a grade of B- for this area. Our nursing score weighs several factors, many of which are tied to levels of nurse staffing. This facility provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a much lower figure than we were hoping for. Finally, our nursing ratings also factor in quality-based assessments, such as preventing major falls. Despite not having the highest total nursing hours, this place actually performed admirably in the metric of preventing major falls. This is typically an indicator that a nursing home has quality controls in place. Many falls can be avoided if a nursing home supplies enough nurses to assist its residents.