Heritage Hall - Laurel Meadows

On top of earning a strong overall grade, this facility fared even better in our inspections category which is associated with the nursing home's recent government inspection reports. In fact, we awarded it an A for this category, which is one of our best scores. Inspection scores are based on datapoints located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that excel in this category tend to have few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these places should not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. Unfortunately, we were not able to track down deficiency data for this facility. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This facility was awarded a strong long-term care score as well. We gave it one of our higher grades in that category with a score of B+. In a long-term care setting, the facility's primary goal is to keep patients as healthy and safe as possible. This is different than skilled nursing or short-term care where the goal is to rehabilitate patients. Once we assessed the volume of care provided by nurses, we then looked at the facility's vaccination records. This facility vaccinated 83.253586 percent of its patients for pneumonia. Although its vaccination rate was a bit lower than we had hoped, at least this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

In addition, this facility also received favorable short-term care grades this year. Indeed, we awarded it one of our more favorable grades in that category, with a grade of B. In the area of short-term care, we endeavor to assess indicators of a nursing home's rehabilitation. We analyze a facility's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses and various therapists. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. However, based on the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final statistic we assessed in this area is the number of patients who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We found that 5.6 percent of this nursing home's residents were able to return home.

The final area we looked at is nursing. We awarded it a C in this area. This is not a bad grade in this category. Our nursing score is based on the facility's nurse staffing levels. We consider both the levels of skill of the nurses as well as the quantity of hours spent with patients. This nursing home provides only 0.3 hours of nursing care per patient daily. This is a somewhat alarming figure which is well below the national average. Finally, we also factored a few quality measures into our nursing ratings. This facility was subpar in a few of the major areas we look at, with below average scores for minimizing its patients' major falls and pressure ulcers. These areas are often decent indicators of the quality of nursing care available.