Heather Hill Care Communities

We want to draw your attention to the fact that this facility really outperformed its overall grade in the area of inspections. In fact, it received an excellent government inspection report this year. As a result, it received one of our best grades in that area with an A+. Our inspection ratings weigh several factors found on a facility's inspection report. One key criteria we rely on is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better scores in this area generally have few of these severe deficiencies. This facility was assessed 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe. This indicates that the inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies to be an immediate risk to patient safety or health. A few minor deficiencies shouldn't lead you to cross a nursing home off your list.

This nursing home's next best area was long-term care. In that category, we gave this facility a grade of B-. For patients looking for a permanent residence as opposed to skilled nursing, long-term care is a very important category. In addition to assessing the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. Candidly, we were a bit bothered by the fact that this nursing home provided the vaccine to a relatively low 74.610245 percent of its residents. Nevertheless, this place keeps its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0.03 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

This nursing home was given its next best category grade in the category of short-term care. We gave this facility a C in this category, which is an acceptable grade. Short-term care grades are important for residents seeking rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually utilizes more skilled nursing. This means a vast spectrum of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. We found that this facility was below average in the two key staffing areas we focus on. The facility offered fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other facilities. It is still important to determine whether this also correlates to a lower quality of care. The last item we assessed in this category is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the nursing home and return home. We discovered that just 5.7 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home, which is actually below average.

The last category we graded is nursing, which ended up being this nursing home's least impressive category. We awarded this facility a D in that area. Our nursing score weighs a variety of subcategories. The most heavily weighted factor is the number of hours nurses spend with patients. This place averaged just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident daily. This statistic is far below the national average. Lastly, we also looked at some nursing quality measures in determining our nursing grades. This place fared well when it comes to avoiding major falls and pressure ulcers. Many consider these statistics to be reliable measures of the quality of nursing care.