View Ridge Care Center

We also found that this facility excelled in our long-term care rating. We awarded them an impressive grade of A+ in this category. Long-term care grades of this caliber generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine healthcare services. On top of considering the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients, which is much higher than the average nursing home. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

This nursing home also received a very impressive nursing grade. In fact, this turned out to be its second best category grade. In that area, we awarded this facility a grade of A. Nursing grades are largely tied to the nursing home's nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 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.

Adding to this facility's impressive resume, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A for our inspections rating. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in computing our inspection scores. One critical factor is deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of these deficiencies is arguably more important than the number of deficiencies, as some can be quite insignificant. Surprisingly, this facility received a category L deficiency, which was not what we expected given its inspection grade. This category of deficiency indicates inspectors discovered a widespread deficiency putting resident health or safety in imminent danger. In spite of this major red flag, other aspects of this facility's inspection report gave us some hope.

The fourth category we rated is short-term care, where this facility was given a grade of A. This topped off an elite profile. Not many nursing homes received an A- or better in every single category. In forming our short-term care grades, we look at the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. Our objective is to formulate a barometer for sizing up the rehabilitation services of different facilities. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the information this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we assessed the number of patients that who were able to eventually return home from this facility. We found that 5.9 percent of this facility's patients returned home.