Heritage Hills Rehabilitation and Care Center

On top of being an elite nursing home overall, this facility excelled in our inspections category, where it earned an A+. Few facilities fared as well in this category. Arguably the most significant factor we look at in calculating our inspection ratings is deficiencies. Deficiencies are found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Facilities with better grades in this category typically dodged the most severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. While this nursing home had a few minor dings on its report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are labeled as categories G through L. This tells you the government inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

One of the other reasons we graded this facility so highly is that it received a very impressive nursing rating. This turned out to be its second best category grade. In that category, we gave this facility a grade of A. The nursing grade is based on a host of factors. The most heavily weighted variable is the amount of time nurses spend with patients. This particular nursing home provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This nursing home performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a place has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can typically be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

The next category we assessed was long-term care. Adding to its dominant resume, this nursing home also excelled in that category. In fact, we awarded it a of A- in the category. When facilities receive this kind of score in long-term care it is a good sign for patient care and indicates that the nursing home is well-staffed with nurses aids. Once we assessed the quantity of nursing care, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination statistics. This nursing home vaccinated 98.9899 percent of its residents for pneumonia, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia is often a deadly illness for nursing home patients so we like it when a facility does not leave this to chance. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

Turning to the final category, this nursing home was awarded a strong short-term care rating. We gave it a B+ in that category, completing one of our more impressive report cards. In crafting these short-term care ratings, we quantify the facility's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. Our purpose is to devise a measure for sizing up the rehabilitation services of nursing homes. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not all facilities employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we assessed the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 4.5 percent of this facility's patients returned home.