Upland Rehabilitation and Care Center

The main reason this turned out to be a decent nursing home is that it received an elite inspection score. In fact, its inspection score was far superior to its overall grade. In our inspections category, we gave this facility an A-. Our inspection scores weigh a host of factors included in a facility's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we rely on is the number and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better scores in this area typically have few severe deficiencies. Fortunately, although this facility had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you CMS did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. A few minor deficiencies shouldn't lead you to cross a nursing home off your list.

This nursing home's second best category turned out to be short-term care. In that category, we gave this nursing home a B-. In forming these short-term care grades, we look at the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The objective is to create a tool for sizing up the rehabilitation services of different nursing homes. In this place's case, we were surprised to learn that it actually provides less registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than the average facility. The hope is always that this does not adversely affect the quality of care. The last statistic we looked at in this category is the number of patients that returned home from the nursing home. We found that just 5.3 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home. This figure was below the national average.

This nursing home was awarded its next best category grade in the area of long-term care. We awarded this nursing home a C in this category, which is an acceptable score. In computing our long-term care grades, we scrutinize the assistance with daily living received by a facility's residents. In addition to looking at the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 99.582466 percent of its patients, which is higher than the vast majority of nursing homes. Lastly, this place was also able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

The last category we graded is nursing, which ended up being a low point for this nursing home. We gave this nursing home a grade of just D in nursing. Our nursing rating includes a handful of subcategories, most of which are associated with nursing hours. This place offered a meager 0.4 hours of nursing care per patient per day. Finally, we also assessed some nursing quality measures in calculating our nursing ratings. This nursing home fared well in terms of minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers.