Harmonee House

While this facility's overall grade was as bad as it gets, it actually excelled in the area of inspections. In fact, we gave it a grade of A- for that category, which is one of our highest scores. Perhaps the most significant factor we consider in determining our inspection scores is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a nursing home's inspection reports. It is typically best to avoid nursing homes that had a long list of deficiencies. 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 with this deficiency, this place still had a relatively positive inspection report.

We also would like to note that this facility received an F for its long-term care score. For prospective patients seeking a permanent place to live rather than rehabilitation, long-term care grades are very important. Once we looked at the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination statistics. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is higher than the majority of nursing homes. To our surprise, this facility also fared well at keeping its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had just 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days. Unfortunately, some of its other scores in the category were not as favorable as these.

In addition, we gave this facility an F in the category of short-term care. Our short-term care scores are important for people needing rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically requires higher levels of highly-skilled nursing services. This means a wide spectrum of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. Not surprisingly, we found that this nursing home provides far less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than the average facility. The final item we assessed in this category is the number of residents that ultimately were able to return home from the nursing home. This facility struggled quite a bit in this metric as well, with just 0 percent of its patients returning home.

The next area we looked at was nursing. This facility was given a poor grade of F in that area. Our nursing grade considers numerous subcategories. The most important variable is the quantity of hours nurses spend with residents. This nursing home provides 0.2 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a much lower figure than we are used to seeing. Lastly, we also looked at some nursing quality measures in calculating our nursing grades. This place performed well in terms of minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls.