Whispering Heights

On top of earning a strong overall grade, this facility also performed well in our inspections category, which is based on the facility's recent inspection reports. We awarded it an A in that area. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in determining these inspection ratings. One critical factor is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of the deficiencies is arguably more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some deficiencies can be relatively insignificant. This place received 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe. This tells you that CMS didn't deem any of these deficiencies to create an immediate threat to resident safety or health. We should note that deficiency-free inspections are uncommon in this industry.

On the list of its many dominant grades, this nursing home was given a top-shelf short-term care grade. In fact, it received a score of A- in this category. Our short-term care ratings are meaningful for patients looking for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually requires higher levels of highly-skilled nursing. Skilled nursing means a wide range of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the information they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we looked at the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

This facility also excelled in the area of nursing, where it received a grade of A-. Few nursing homes performed better in this area. There are quite a few factors included in this category. Most of the datapoints are tied to staffing levels. 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 facility performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a nursing home has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can frequently be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

In our final category, this facility also was awarded a very strong long-term care rating, with a grade of B+. This completed an elite profile. Facilities that receive this kind of grade in long-term care typically provide consistent 24/7 care to make sure patients are well cared for. On top of considering the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home provided the vaccine to 95.14563 percent of its residents. Vaccines are vital to keeping residents out of the hospital. Lastly, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.