Hemingford Care Center

In addition to faring well overall, this nursing home received a nearly flawless inspection report. Consequently, it earned one of our best scores in that area with an A+. Our inspection grades weigh several factors included in a nursing home's inspection report. One key criteria we weigh heavily is the number and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better grades in this category typically have very few severe deficiencies. It does not appear that we were able to find deficiency data for this facility. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

In addition, this facility also received favorable long-term care scores in our assessment. Indeed, we awarded them one of our more favorable grades in that category, with a score of B+. When nursing homes receive a grade in this range in long-term care it generally means it's well-staffed and is a quality place to live on a permanent basis. On top of assessing the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home provided the vaccine to 95 percent of its residents, which is more than the vast majority of nursing homes. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

This facility was given a strong short-term care score as well. We gave it one of our higher grades in that category with a grade of B+. Short-term care grades are vital for prospective residents seeking rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally utilizes higher levels of skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes a vast scope of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. It does not appear that this facility provided information on registered nurse or physical therapist staffing. Lastly, we looked at the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

The final area we looked at is nursing, in which this facility was awarded a B. Believe it or not, this proved to be this nursing home's weakest category. A facility could be doing a lot worse when it's lowest grade still is better than most nursing homes. Our nursing grade includes many components, most of which are based on quantities of nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics and this place 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 nation in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can typically be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as employing a system of turning a resident even once per day.