Accel at Willow Bend

One of the reasons this turned out to be a quality facility is that it received an impressive inspection grade. In fact, inspections turned out to be its best category grade. In this category, we awarded this facility an A-. Perhaps the most important factor we consider in determining our inspection ratings is deficiencies. These deficiencies can be found on a facility's inspection reports. Facilities with better scores in this category typically avoided the most severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. While this nursing home had some deficiencies on its report, none of them were severe based on CMS' scale. We should point out that deficiency-free inspections are rare in this industry.

Another one of this nursing home's impressive category scores came in the area of short-term care. We awarded them one of our stronger scores in that category, with a grade of B+. In computing our short-term care scores, we quantify the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. Our objective is to formulate a tool for comparing the rehabilitation services of different nursing homes. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. However, according to the data they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we assessed the number of residents that eventually returned home from this nursing home. We found that 5.5 percent of this nursing home's residents were able to return home.

In addition, this facility also received favorable nursing grades this year. In fact, we awarded them one of our better scores in that area, with a grade of B+. Nursing ratings are primarily based on a nursing home's nurse staffing. This particular nursing home provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures and this facility excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any facility Texas in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as employing a protocol of turning residents more often.

The final area we assessed was long-term care. We awarded this facility a C in this area. For prospective residents in need of a permanent residence as opposed to skilled nursing, long-term care grades are an important measure. On top of considering the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility provided the vaccine to 98.71795 percent of its patients, which is better than the majority of nursing homes. Finally, this facility was also able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.