Harbor Hill Center

One of the reasons this turned out to be a great nursing home is that it earned an A+ short-term care grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this category. In forming these short-term care grades, we look at the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The objective is to devise a scale for sizing up the rehabilitation services of different facilities. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we considered the percentage of patients who ultimately returned home from this nursing home. We found that 5.9 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

In addition, this nursing home also earned a nearly flawless government inspection report. As a result, it received one of our highest grades in that area with an A. Inspection scores account for several factors included in a nursing home's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we weigh heavily is the number and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better grades in this area generally have few of these severe deficiencies. While this nursing home had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones labeled as categories G through L. This means CMS didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. We should note that deficiency-free inspection reports are rare in the industry.

This facility is also strong in the area of nursing, where it received a grade of B+. It outperformed most nursing homes in this category. Our nursing grade is primarily tied to the facility's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures and this facility excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any facility the state in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as employing a policy of moving residents more often.

Switching gears to our final category, this facility was awarded a decent long-term care rating. While this wasn't as dominant as several of its other category grades, this is truly not a poor grade. For long-term care residents, the facility's primary objective is to maintain patients' quality of life and keep them safe. After assessing the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination statistics. We were optimistic to discover that this facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients for pneumonia. This place was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. It had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.