Fitchburg Healthcare

While this facility's overall grade was decent, it really fared well in the area of inspections. In fact, we awarded it a grade of A- for that category, which is one of our best scores. Our inspection scores are based on many pieces of information located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes that score well in this category typically have few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these places generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. 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. Even some of the best nursing homes receive an occasional ding on their inspection report.

Another one of this facility's higher category scores came in the area of long-term care. In that area, we gave this facility a grade of B. It actually fared better than most facilities in this area. Facilities that receive this kind of score in this category typically provide consistent 24/7 care to ensure patients are well cared for. On top of considering the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients. Vaccines are critical to keeping patients healthy. Lastly, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This facilities next most favorable category is short-term care. We gave it a B- in this area. This is basically a middle of the road score in this area. In the category of short-term care, we strive to evaluate measures of a facility's rehabilitation services. We analyze a facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses and physical therapists. We weren't able to track down registered nurse or physical therapy staffing data for this nursing home. Lastly, we considered the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 5.3 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their residents are able to return home so this figure is below average.

The final area we graded was nursing. We awarded this nursing home a grade of D in the area of nursing, making this the facility's least impressive grade. The nursing grade includes several data points. The most heavily weighted one is the amount of time nurses spend with residents. This particular nursing home averaged just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident on a daily basis. This number is significantly below average. In addition to receiving below average marks for nursing hours, this facility was less impressive in some of the quality-based measures we looked at in computing our nursing grades. We looked at the percent of residents experiencing pressure ulcers and found that this nursing home was at approximately 150 percent of the national average in this statistic. This is likely a bad sign when you consider that many bed sores are believed to be preventable with better nursing care. This statistic dragged down this facility's nursing score significantly.