Harbor Hill Center

In addition to a phenomenal overall grade, this facility also received A+ nursing grade. Our nursing grade is based on the facility's level of nurse staffing. We consider both the levels of skill of the nurses and the number of hours spent with residents. This particular nursing home provided 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This nursing home performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a facility has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can often be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

This facility also was given a very strong short-term care score. Indeed, this is this facility's second strongest category score. In that category, this facility received a grade of A. Our short-term care ratings are believed to be most critical for residents in need of a nursing home for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically requires higher levels of highly-skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes not merely nursing services, but also physical and occupational therapy, as well as other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final metric we looked at in this area is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We found that 5.8 percent of this facility's residents returned home.

In addition, this nursing home also earned a nearly flawless government inspection report. It received one of our best grades in that category with an A. Inspection ratings take several factors into consideration, including deficiencies and substantiated complaints. You can find more information about each of these issues by reviewing copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. This nursing home was hit with 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe deficiencies. This indicates that the government inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies to create an immediate risk to resident safety or health. We should point out that deficiency-free inspection reports are uncommon in this industry.

Turning to the next category, we gave this facility a grade of D in the area of long-term care. This is the nursing home's worst category score. However, we wouldn't dwell on a single bad score. In our long-term care assessment, we weigh the quantity of services offered by a facility, along with a series of qualitative data points. On top of considering the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients. Surprisingly, this nursing home also fared well at keeping its patients out of the hospital. It had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days. Unfortunately, a few of its other scores in the category weren't as favorable as these.