Abbington Rehab & Nursing Center

In addition to being a respectable nursing home overall, this facility also excelled in the category of inspections, where it earned an A-. Few nursing homes performed better in this area. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in calculating our inspection ratings. One of those factors is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of deficiencies is arguably more important than the number of deficiencies, as some of these end up being relatively minor. This facility was hit with 6 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe. This means that CMS did not consider any of the deficiencies to pose an immediate risk to resident health or safety. A couple of minor deficiencies should not lead you to cross a nursing home off your list.

This facility's short-term care rating is one of its more favorable grades. The nursing home received a grade of B- in this category. In calculating our short-term care ratings, we size up a nursing home's levels of skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists occupational therapists and other licensed professionals. This category is typically a meaningful assessment of the nursing home's rehabilitation. In this facility's case, we were surprised to learn that it actually provides less registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than the typical facility. The hope is always that this does not adversely impact the quality of care. The final metric we considered in this area is the number of patients who ultimately were able to return home from the facility. We found that just 3.9 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

This nursing home's next best category was nursing. We awarded it a grade of B- in this category. This is basically a middle of the road grade in this category. Our nursing rating includes a handful of factors, but the most important consideration is the quantity of nurse hours per patient per week. This place provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per patient daily. This is a relatively low total compared to most other facilities. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this place surprisingly fared better in some of the quality measures we assessed. It scored well in the area of minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be reliable indicators of the quality of nursing care. In many cases, the quality of nursing care is just as important as the number of hours of care offered.

The last category we assessed is long-term care, which ended up being this nursing home's least impressive category. It received a lowly F in this area, which is certainly very concerning. For long-term care residents, the primary objective is to keep patients healthy and safe. This is different than skilled nursing or short-term care where the goal is to rehabilitate residents. After we finished assessing the quantity of care provided by nurses, we then looked at the facility's vaccination statistics. We were pleased to find that this nursing home vaccinates 100 percent of its patients against pneumonia. Surprisingly, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. With just 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this nursing home has less hospitalizations than the majority of nursing homes. Unfortunately, a few of its other scores in this category weren't as favorable as these.