Heritage Manor

This nursing home received an inspection score which is better than its overall rating. Inspection ratings are associated with a facility's recent inspections. We awarded this facility a very solid grade of B+ in this category. Arguably the most critical factor we look at in determining our inspection ratings is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Places with higher grades in this area typically avoided the more severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. Although this place had some deficiencies on its inspection report, none of them were serious based on CMS' scale. Remember that deficiency-free inspections are uncommon in the industry.

Another one of this nursing home's better category grades was in the category of long-term care. In that area, we awarded this nursing home a grade of B. Nursing homes that receive this kind of score in this category typically provide consistent around the clock care to make sure residents are well cared for. Once we looked at the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination records. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is much higher than the vast majority of nursing homes. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

In addition, we awarded this nursing home a grade of B in our nursing category. This is one of our better grades. There are several factors included in this grade. Many of these factors are tied to levels of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics and this facility 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 generally be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by employing a policy of turning a patient even once per day.

Turning to the fourth area, this facility was awarded an acceptable short-term care grade of C. In determining our short-term care grades, we look at a facility's levels of highly skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists respiratory therapists and other licensed professionals. This area is generally a fair assessment of the nursing home's rehabilitation services. It does not appear that this nursing home submitted information about its staffing of registered nurses or physical therapists. Finally, we considered the percentage of patients that returned home from this facility. We found that 4.8 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home. This figure was quite a bit below the national average.