Gardiner Health Care Facility
PO Box 520, Houlton ME 04730 · (207) 532-3323 · 81.11% estimated occupancy 1Updated: Aug 1, 2020 · By Nick Reese
Gardiner Health Care Facility is a senior living facility located in Houlton, Maine. This city has a population of 9,992 people. Sporting an overall grade of C, this is likely a middle of the road nursing home. Based on our ratings, this nursing home has some redeeming qualities. The best part of this nursing home's profile is is its inspection grade. We discuss inspections in the next section.
Additional Details:
Accepts Medicare 1 :
Accepts Medicaid 1 : 45 Beds
CCRC :
For profit - Partnership
Resident Council:
Family Council:
Medical Staff Hours Per Patient (2019)
Facility Inspections
This facility earned a solid overall grade as described above, but we really wanted to emphasize its excellent government inspection reports in recent years. We awarded them an A- in this category. Our inspection ratings are tied to many pieces of information located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that score well in this area have few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these places generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. While this place had a few deficiencies on its inspection report, none were severe based on CMS' scale. A couple minor deficiencies should not lead you to cross a nursing home off your list.
Short-term Care Quality
We also gave this facility a strong score in short-term care. This nursing home earned a B in this category, which turns out to be one of our more impressive grades. In calculating our short-term care grades, we assess the nursing home's levels of skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists speech therapists and other highly skilled individuals. This category is more often than not a meaningful assessment of the nursing home's rehabilitation services. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Finally, we assessed the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that it outperformed the majority of nursing homes in the country with 51.7 percent of its patients returning home. This is a higher rate than most facilities.
Nurse Quality
This nursing home's nursing grade appears to be one of its better features. The facility received a grade of B- in this category. Our nursing rating assesses many components, but the primary one is the quantity of nurse hours spent with patients. This nursing home provides an impressive 4.1 hours of nursing care per resident each day. This is among the higher totals in Maine. Finally, we also baked a few quality measures into our nursing scores. This facility fared poorly in two of the areas we considered, with below average scores for minimizing its patients' pressure ulcers and major falls. These areas are typically good measures of the quality of nursing care offered.
Long-term Care Quality
Switching gears to the fourth category, we gave this nursing home a D in the area of long-term care. This was the nursing home's worst category grade. For long-term care residents, the primary goal is to maintain residents' quality of life and keep them safe. In addition to assessing the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility provided the vaccine to 94.557816 percent of its patients. Surprisingly, this nursing home also fared well at keeping its residents out of the hospital. It had only 1.14 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days. Unfortunately, some of its other scores in this category were not as favorable as these.
Overall Rating Over Time
Compared to national and state averages across all facilities.
Gardiner Health Care Facility Quality Metrics
Minimizes Pressure Ulcers
This tells you the percentage of long-term residents who suffer from new or worsened pressure ulcers or bed sores. We factor in this statistic in computing both nursing and long-term care grades.
Percent of Patients with Pressure Ulcers
Lower is Better
Minimizes Serious Falls
This datapoint indicates the percentage of long-term patients that suffered a fall leading to severe injury. This is one of the statistics we use in computing our nursing ratings.
Percent of Patients with Serious Falls
Lower is Better
Minimizes Urinary Tract Infections
This tells you the percentage of long-term stay residents who suffered from urinary tract infections. UTI's may be an indication of a facility with lower levels of hygiene. Nevertheless, this statistic could also be skewed for certain facilities due to different reporting standards for UTI's.
Percent of Patients with UTIs
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Psychotic Medication
This indicates the percent of patients who were given antipsychotic medications. Antipsychotic medications are prescribed to patients for a variety of conditions, such as cognitive disorders. Tragically, in some situations, increased usage of these drugs may suggest a nursing home is using these medications to subdue residents.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Anxiety Medication
This is the percent of patients prescribed antianxiety drugs. These drugs are used to treat residents experiencing depression and anxiety.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Managing Depression Among Residents
This metric is a measure of the percentage of long-term care patients who are showing signs of depression. Some would argue this is a reliable measure of patient quality of life.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriate Vaccine Usage
This is a measure of the percent of long-term stay residents who were administered the flu and pneumonia vaccines. Respiratory viruses can be fatal for nursing home residents, making these vaccines critical to patient health.
Percent of Patients
Higher is Better
Residents Maintain Autonomy
This tells you the percent of patients who required additional assistance with activities of daily living over time.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Ability to Keep Residents Mobile
This metric tracks the percent of long-term care residents that retained mobility levels.
Percentage of Residents
Higher is Better
Hospitalizations
This datapoint is a measure of the number of times residents are hospitalized per thousand days of patient care. Avoiding hospitalizations is key to the physical well-being of nursing home patients.
Hospitalizations per 1,000 resident days
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Rehospitalizations
This metric tracks the number of rehospitalizations per 1,000 days of short-term care. Avoiding the hospital during rehabilitation is critical to restoring the physical abilities of patients.
Percentage of Residents Rehospitalized
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: ER Visits
This metric measures the number of times residents are sent to the emergency room per thousand days of short-term patient care. Avoiding emergency medical situations is one way to gauge the well-being of patients during rehabilitation.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Facilitates Functional Improvement
This metric is a measure of the percent of short-term stay patients that experienced functional improvements, such as with activities of daily living. Some experts would argue that this is a reliable measure of rehabilitation services.
Percentage of Resident
Higher is Better