Hammond Nursing Home

On top of performing well in its overall grade, this facility performed at an even higher level in the area of inspections. In fact, it received a nearly flawless inspection report this year. As a result, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A+. Our inspection grades are based on items found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that excel in this area typically have very few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these nursing homes 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.

This facility was given a favorable long-term care score as well. We awarded it one of our higher grades in that area with a grade of B+. When facilities receive this type of score in this category it is usually a good sign for resident care and suggests that the nursing home is well-staffed with nurses and aids. Once we assessed the volume of care provided by nurses, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination records. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia is too frequently a dangerous illness for nursing home patients so we like it when a facility does not leave this to chance. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

This nursing home's next best category was nursing. We awarded it a grade of B- in this category. While this wasn't quite as good as some of its other category grades, this isn't a bad score either. Our nursing score analyzes the nursing home's nurse staffing levels. We factor in both the levels of skill of those nurses and the amount of time spent with patients. This nursing home provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident daily. This figure is significantly below average. Lastly, despite not having the highest total nursing hours, this nursing home performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is usually an indicator that a nursing home has sufficient quality controls in place.

The next category we scored is short-term care, which was this facility's worst area. We gave this nursing home a grade of D in this area. Unfortunately, this category pulled down the facility's overall grade to a certain degree. With our short-term care category, we try to create a fair measure for rehabilitation. In this process, we analyze the facility's scope of skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as occupational therapy. In this nursing home's case, we found that it provides less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than the average facility. Lastly, we looked at the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. This definitely wasn't a strength for this nursing home. We found that just 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most facilities, around half of their patients are able to return home so this is well below average.