Althea Woodland

In addition to performing well in its overall grade, this facility performed at an even higher level in the area of inspections. In fact, it received a nearly flawless inspection report this year. As a result, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A. Our inspection ratings are tied to pieces of information located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes that receive favorable grades in this category tend to have few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these places generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. While this place had a few minor dings on its report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G through L. This tells you that the government inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. The fact that the deficiencies were relatively minor made us feel better about this inspection report.

This nursing home also received a strong nursing score. In fact, we awarded it an above average grade of B+ in this area. Our nursing grade is largely based on the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures and this nursing home excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any facility Maryland in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as by having a system of turning a resident even once per day.

This nursing home also was awarded a favorable short-term care score. In fact, we awarded it an above average score of B+ in this area. Our short-term care ratings are crucial for prospective residents seeking rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically utilizes additional highly-skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing means a wide range of services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like this facility submitted registered nurse or physical therapist staffing data. The last item we considered in this category is the number of residents who eventually returned home from the facility. We found that 5.5 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

The next category we assessed is long-term care. We awarded this facility a D in our long-term care category, making this the facility's least impressive grade. Long-term care ratings of this caliber generally are a bad sign for the quantity and quality of care provided by nurses and aids. In addition to considering the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility provided the vaccine to 69.375 percent of its residents. This is pretty significantly lower than the national average. Surprisingly, this facility was actually decent at keeping its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days. This is its best feature in this category.