Cummings Health Care Facility

This nursing home received a solid overall grade as described above, but it really excelled in the area of nursing care, with an impressive grade of A- in this category. Our nursing grade is based on quite a few factors, most of which are associated with nursing hours. This facility provided 0 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics and this place excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any facility the nation in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by having a protocol of turning a patient more often.

This facility also was awarded a positive score in our short-term care category. We gave this facility an above average grade of B in this category. Our short-term care ratings are likely most critical for residents needing rehabilitation from their nursing home. Rehabilitation usually requires higher levels of skilled nursing services. This means not only nursing, but also physical and respiratory therapy, as well as other forms of therapy. Unfortunately, it does not appear that this nursing home provided information on registered nurse or physical therapist staffing. Finally, we looked at the number of residents that ultimately were able to return home from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home.

This facility's third best category grade came in the area of inspections. In that category, we gave this facility a grade of B. It actually outperformed most facilities in this category. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in computing our inspection scores. One of those factors is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of deficiencies is usually more important than the number of deficiencies, as some deficiencies end up being relatively minor. Although this facility had some deficiencies on its government inspection report, none of them were serious based on CMS' deficiency scale. We should point out that deficiency-free inspections are uncommon in the industry.

The next area we scored was long-term care, which is this nursing home's worst area. Sadly, it received an F for this category, which is clearly very disappointing. Nursing homes that do not score well in this category often do not provide as much nursing care and also may be lagging in some of the areas of routine personal care we assessed. Once we looked at the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we next considered the facility's vaccination data. We were disappointed to learn that this facility vaccinated only 90 percent of its patients against pneumonia. Surprisingly, this place was actually able to limit hospitalizations. With only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this facility had fewer hospitalizations than the average nursing home. This is its best feature in this category.