Elderwood at Wheatfield

Elderwood at Wheatfield is one of a mere three facilities located in Niagara Falls, New York. After receiving an overall grade of A, this facility is ranked among the most impressive nursing homes we looked at. We were so impressed with this nursing home that we ranked it in the top 25 percent of all facilities in the country. If you look further down this page, you will see this facility's category ratings, which are also quite good.

In addition to being a first rate facility overall, this facility also performed well in our inspections category, where it earned an A+. Very few nursing homes fared this well in this category. Inspection grades account for several factors included in a nursing home's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we rely on is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Nursing homes with better grades in this category usually have very few of these severe deficiencies. This nursing home was hit with 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be major deficiencies. This means that the inspectors didn't consider any of these deficiencies to create an immediate risk to resident health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Contributing to its top-shelf assessment, this nursing home also was awarded a dominant short-term care grade, with a score of A. In computing our short-term care scores, we assess the facility's levels of skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists speech therapists and other highly trained professionals. This category is generally a reliable measure of the nursing home's ability to rehabilitate patients. This nursing home elevated its grade in this category by offering more care from registered nurses to its residents than the average facility. The final item we looked at in this category is the percentage of residents who returned home from the facility. We found that it fared as well as just about any facility in New York in this area with 59.9 percent of its patients returning home. For most facilities, fewer than half of their short-stay residents return home.

The third category we analyzed is long-term care. This nursing home was awarded an impressive long-term care score, with a grade of B+ in the area. Facilities that receive this kind of score in this category typically provide consistent 24/7 care to ensure residents are well cared for. While we determined this facility had an above average quantity of nursing care provided by nurses and other nursing staff, we found its vaccine statistics to be somewhat low. It administered the pneumonia vaccine to just 88.82682 percent of its patients. This is one statistic we'd like to see this facility bring up. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

Switching gears to the final area, this nursing home also performed well in the nursing category. We awarded it a B+ for that category. This wrapped up a very strong profile. Nursing ratings are largely based on a facility's nurse staffing. This place boasts a really impressive 4.3 hours of nursing care per resident on a daily basis, of which a significant percentage was provided by registered nurses. This is one of the most highly trained levels of nurses. This is one of the higher totals of nursing hours we found at any facility. On top of looking at levels of nursing care, we also looked at a few quality-based metrics in determining our nursing grades. These include minimizing residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. We view these data points as good indicators of the quality of nursing care offered, since better care tends to reduce these problems.