Birchwood Health Care Center

Although we did not have many positive things to say about this nursing home's overall score, it did receive a somewhat respectable government inspection report this year. It received a decent score in that area with a B-. We believe that one of the most critical factors in assessing an inspection report is deficiencies. We especially look at the severity of those deficiencies. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Lastly, this facility was flagged by CMS for possible abuse or neglect. We prefer to avoid facilities with this designation. Please do your best to find an alternative nursing home.

We also want to point out that this facility received a decent grade in our nursing category. We awarded it a grade of B- in the area. Nursing scores are heavily correlated with levels of nurse staffing. This place provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per patient on a daily basis. This is a much lower figure than we were hoping for. Lastly, we also assessed some nursing quality-based metrics. Although this place got docked a bit for nursing hours, it excelled in some of these quality metrics. With less than five percent of its patients sustaining pressure ulcers, it fared well in this subcategory. This is typically a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as employing a protocol of moving residents at least once a day.

The third area we assessed is short-term care. In that category, we awarded this nursing home a solid grade of B-. In determining our short-term care grades, we assess a nursing home's levels of skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists occupational therapists and other highly skilled individuals. This area is more often than not a solid assessment of a facility's ability to rehabilitate patients. We found that this facility was below average in the two key staffing areas we focus on. In fact, it supplied fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than most other facilities. Lastly, we assessed the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 6.5 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their patients are able to return home so this figure is below average.

The final category we scored was long-term care. We gave this nursing home a B- in that category. In the category of long-term care, we focus more on the quantity of care provided by a nursing home, rather than more healthcare-oriented services. After assessing the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then looked at the facility's vaccination record. We were pleased to discover that this facility vaccinated 99.57806 percent of its residents for pneumonia. Finally, this place was also able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.