Hammond Health Services

To pair with a favorable overall score, we gave this nursing home an A+ for our inspection category. Inspection ratings weigh several factors, including deficiencies and federal fines. You can find more information about each of these issues by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. 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. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This facility also fared very well in the category of long-term care, where it received a score of A. Few nursing homes fared better in this area. Facilities that receive this type of score in this category tend to provide consistent around the clock care to make sure patients are kept in good health. In addition to assessing the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia tragically can be a life threatening health condition for nursing home residents so we like it when a nursing home does not leave its residents vulnerable. Lastly, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

Adding to its impressive resume, this nursing home also excelled in our nursing category. In fact, we awarded it a grade of A- for that category. Our nursing grade assesses the facility's nurse staffing levels. We weigh both the levels of licensure of those nurses as well as the quantity of hours spent with residents. This facility provided 3.6 hours of nursing care per patient on a daily basis. About one-fourth of these hours were provided by registered nurses, which are among the most skilled levels of nurses. This is a high percentage of skilled nursing care. We weight these hours performed by skilled nurses more in determining our nursing grades. Finally, we also assessed certain nursing quality measures in computing our nursing grades. These include minimizing residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. We look at these areas as reliable measures of the quality of nursing care provided, since better care tends to reduce these problems.

The fourth category we graded was short-term care, where this facility was given a grade of A-. This wrapped up a very impressive report card. Very few facilities received an A- or higher in in each area we assessed. Short-term care grades are typically used to measure a nursing home's rehabilitation services. To have high-end rehabilitation services, facilities generally need to have better levels of skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists and other highly skilled individuals. One of this place's strengths is registered nurse hours. This facility offers more care from registered nurses than most facilities. The final measure we looked at in this category is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. This place was above average in this area with 52.9 percent of its residents returning home.