Trinity Nursing and Rehabilitation of Comfort

In addition to earning a great overall score, this facility also received an elite nursing rating. We gave them one of our better scores in that area, with an A. Our nursing score analyzes the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. We factor in both the levels of training of the nurses and the number of hours spent with residents. This nursing home averages 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures and this place excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any nursing home Texas in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as having a system of moving residents at least once a day.

In addition, this nursing home received top notch government inspections in recent years. We awarded them one of our better grades in that area, with an B+. Our inspection scores are based on items located in the a nursing home's inspection reports. Places that score well in this area typically have very few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these nursing homes should not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. This place was hit with 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered severe. This indicates that the government inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies an imminent threat to resident safety or health. We should note that deficiency-free inspection reports are rare in the industry.

Turning to another strength for this nursing home, we awarded them one of our stronger grades in our short-term care category as well, with a B+. In forming our short-term care scores, we analyze the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. Our goal is to formulate a barometer for sizing up the rehabilitation services of different nursing homes. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the information they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final measure we assessed in this area is the percentage of patients who ultimately returned home from the facility. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

The final area we scored was long-term care, in which this nursing home was awarded a grade of C. Although this turned out to be its least impressive category grade, this is still a middle of the pack score. For prospective patients looking for a permanent place to live as opposed to rehabilitation, long-term care is a very important category. On top of assessing the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility provided the vaccine to 92 percent of its residents, which is a few points lower than we anticipated. Nevertheless, this facility was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.