Heritage Center
7232 German Hill Road, Dundalk MD 21222 · (410) 282-6310 · 92.03% estimated occupancy 1Updated: Aug 1, 2020 · By Nick Lata
With an address in Dundalk, Maryland, Heritage Center is the only option we identified in the area. This nursing home turns out to be a very solid facility, with an overall grade of B. Based on our assessment, you can do much worse than this place. The best aspect of this facility's strong profile was its short-term care score. We discuss short-term care in the next section
Additional Details:
Accepts Medicare 1 :
Accepts Medicaid 1 : 177 Beds
CCRC :
For profit - Corporation
Resident Council:
Family Council:
Medical Staff Hours Per Patient (2019)
Short-term Care Quality
On top of performing well overall, this nursing home received even higher grades in our short-term care rating. In fact, it earned one of our highest grades in that area with A-. Short-term care scores are meaningful for individuals looking for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually requires additional highly-skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes a vast spectrum of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, as well as other types of therapy. This nursing home employs both physical therapists and registered nurses. Not all facilities employ these skilled professionals. This nursing home performed much better in the final datapoint we considered in this area, which was the number of residents who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. It performed as well as just about any facility in Maryland in this area with 62.6 percent of its patients returning home. At most nursing homes, fewer than half of their short-stay residents are able to return home.
Facility Inspections
This facility also performed well in our inspection category, which is based on the facility's recent inspections. We gave it an A- for that area. These inspection scores take several factors into consideration, including deficiencies and substantiated complaints. You can learn more about each of these items by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. While this place had some deficiencies on its inspection report, none of them were major deficiencies based on CMS' deficiency scale. A few minor deficiencies are not the end of the world.
Nurse Quality
This facility received a very good nursing grade this year as well. It received one of our better scores in that category with a grade of B+. We looked at the qualifications of nurses at the facility, in addition to the number of hours those nurses were with residents, in calculating our rating in this category. This facility provided 4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is an impressive figure which typically leads to higher quality care. Finally, this nursing home also performed well in several of the quality-based metrics we assessed. In terms of the percentage of its patients suffering falls leading to major injury, this nursing home performed as well as any nursing home in the state.
Long-term Care Quality
Moving on to the last area, we gave this nursing home a grade of D in our long-term care category. This was the facility's worst category grade. Unfortunately, this score hurt the facility's overall grade a bit. If you are looking for anything other than short-term rehabilitation, you should take a close look at long-term care ratings. Due to its grade in this category, we were pleasantly surprised to find that this facility had favorable subcategory scores in both nursing hours and its vaccination records. In fact, this nursing home provided the pneumonia vaccine to 97.07724 percent of its patients. This statistic is better than many nursing homes. Surprisingly, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. With just 0.98 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this nursing home has fewer hospitalizations than the majority of nursing homes. Unfortunately, some of its other scores in this category were not as favorable as these.
Overall Rating Over Time
Compared to national and state averages across all facilities.
Heritage Center Quality Metrics
Minimizes Pressure Ulcers
This statistic tells you the percent of long-term stay patients who have new or worsened pressure ulcers. Many experts believe that pressure ulcers are a solid indicator of quality of care.
Percent of Patients with Pressure Ulcers
Lower is Better
Minimizes Serious Falls
This is the percentage of residents that sustained a fall resulting in severe injury.
Percent of Patients with Serious Falls
Lower is Better
Minimizes Urinary Tract Infections
This is the percent of patients that suffered from a urinary tract infection. Urinary tract infections are considered by many experts to be a barometer of the quality of nursing care at a nursing home. UTI's are often linked to poor nursing care. Nevertheless, this statistic could be skewed for certain facilities due to inconsistent reporting standards for UTI's.
Percent of Patients with UTIs
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Psychotic Medication
This tells you the percent of residents prescribed antipsychotic drugs. Antipsychotic drugs are given to patients for a variety of medical conditions, including cognitive disorders. Sadly, in some situations, increased usage of these drugs may suggest a facility is using these medications to control patient behavior.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Anxiety Medication
This tells you the percentage of patients who were prescribed antianxiety drugs. Antianxiety medications are given to patients experiencing depression and anxiety.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Managing Depression Among Residents
This is the percentage of residents who are showing symptoms of depression.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriate Vaccine Usage
This indicates the percentage of residents that received the pneumonia and flu vaccines. Higher vaccination rates should be the norm at this point.
Percent of Patients
Higher is Better
Residents Maintain Autonomy
This datapoint measures the percentage of long-term residents who required additional assistance with activities of daily living over time. Activities of daily living include activities such as moving around and taking a bath. Many argue this is a reasonable measure of a resident's well-being.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Ability to Keep Residents Mobile
This is the percent of patients who remained mobile levels over time. Retaining mobility is usually a good sign for residents' well-being.
Percentage of Residents
Higher is Better
Hospitalizations
This is a measure of the number of times residents are hospitalized per 1,000 days of patient care.
Hospitalizations per 1,000 resident days
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Rehospitalizations
This is a measure of the number of rehospitalizations per 1,000 days of short-term patient care. Minimizing rehospitalizations during rehabilitation is important to restoring the health of patients.
Percentage of Residents Rehospitalized
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: ER Visits
This is the number of emergency room visits per 1,000 days of short-term patient care. There is usually a correlation between staying out of the emergency room and the quality of nursing home care.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Facilitates Functional Improvement
This indicates the percent of short-term residents who experienced functional improvements, such as enhanced ability to perform activities of daily living. High levels of performance with ADL's often correlates with better rehabilitation.
Percentage of Resident
Higher is Better