Hamilton Health Services

The primary reason this turned out to be a decent nursing home is that it received an elite inspection score. In fact, its inspection grade was far better than its overall grade. In our inspections category, we gave this facility an A-. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in computing these inspection ratings. One critical factor is health deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of these deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some of these end up being relatively insignificant. This facility received 2 deficiencies on its inspection report, but fortunately none of the deficiencies were considered to be major deficiencies. This indicates that the government inspectors didn't consider any of the deficiencies to be an imminent threat to resident health or safety. Remember that deficiency-free inspections are uncommon in the industry.

This facility also was given a strong short-term care score. In fact, we gave them a B+ in that area, which is one of our more favorable scores. In calculating our short-term care scores, we assess the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. Our purpose is to devise a tool for sizing up the rehabilitation services of nursing homes. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the data they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final metric we considered in this category is the number of residents who were able to leave the facility and return home. We discovered that 5 percent of this facility's patients returned home.

This nursing home also received a strong grade in our nursing category. We awarded this nursing home an above average grade of B in this area. In determining our nursing grades, we analyze both staffing levels and the levels of licensure of those nurses. This nursing home averages 0.2 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This facility 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.

Switching gears to our last category, this nursing home really did not fare well. With a rock bottom grade of F in long-term care, this is its weakest grade. Nursing homes that don't fare well in this category typically are not as well-staffed and are lagging in some of the areas of routine medical care we looked at. Once we assessed the amount of care provided by nurses, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination data. We were a bit bothered by the fact that this nursing home vaccinated a relatively low 84.61539 percent of its residents against pneumonia. To our surprise, this nursing home was actually able to limit hospitalizations. With just 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this facility has fewer hospitalizations than the majority of nursing homes. This was its best feature in this category.