Hammond-Whiting Care Center

While we graded this facility incredibly poorly overall, it received a fairly respectable inspection report this year. As a result, it received a decent grade in that category with a score of B-. These inspection scores weigh several factors, including deficiencies and substantiated complaints. You can learn more about each of these factors by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. Fortunately, although this facility had some minor dings on its inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are found in categories G through L. This tells you CMS did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility was cited by CMS for possible abuse or neglect. We would not recommend this facility under any circumstance.

One of the other reasons we rated this nursing home so highly is that it received a very impressive nursing score. In that category, we gave this facility a grade of C. We analyzed the levels of nurses at the nursing home, as well as the number of hours the nurses worked with patients, in calculating our grade in this category. This nursing home averages just 0.3 hours of nursing care per patient per day, which is well below average. Lastly, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics. Although this nursing home got docked a bit for nursing hours per resident, it actually excelled in some of these quality metrics. With fewer than five percent of its patients sustaining pressure ulcers, it did remarkably well in this statistic. This can be an indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can typically be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as having a system of turning residents at least once a day.

Moving on to the area of short-term care, this nursing home was given just a D in that area. Our short-term care scores are believed to be most meaningful for those needing rehabilitation services. Rehabilitation usually utilizes more skilled nursing services. This includes not only nursing, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other forms of therapy. Considering its grade in this area, we weren't surprised to discover that this facility is well below average in terms of its quantity of physical therapy and registered nurse hours offered to its patients based on the data we assessed. Finally, we assessed the number of patients that ultimately were able to return home from this nursing home. This nursing home didn't fare well here either. In fact, we found that just 4.9 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home. This figure was well off the national average.

This nursing home's worst area is long-term care, which is the last area we scored. For this category, we gave this facility a D. When facilities receive this type of score in long-term care it is typically a bad sign for patient care and it may mean that the facility is not as well-staffed with nurses and aids. After we finished looking at the volume of nursing care, we turned to the facility's vaccination data. Candidly, we were a bit bothered by the fact that this facility vaccinated a relatively low 76.666664 percent of its residents against pneumonia. To our surprise, this nursing home was actually able to limit hospitalizations. With only 0.03 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this nursing home has fewer hospitalizations than most nursing homes. This is its best feature in this category.