Heritage Manor South

In addition to being a quality nursing home overall, this nursing home really fared well in our long-term care category, where it earned an A+. Few facilities performed better in this area. When facilities receive a score in this range in long-term care it typically means it's well-staffed and is an overall good place to reside on a permanent basis. After looking at the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we then analyzed the nursing home's vaccination data. This nursing home vaccinated 99.72067 percent of its residents against pneumonia, which is significantly higher than the majority of nursing homes. Finally, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This nursing home also performed well in our inspection category, which is based on the facility's inspection reports. In fact, we gave it an A for that area, which is one of our best grades. Inspection scores account for a host of factors included in a facility's inspection report. One key criteria we weigh heavily is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with higher scores in this area typically have few of these severe deficiencies. We were not able to find deficiency data for this nursing home. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This nursing home's next best category was nursing. We awarded it a grade of B- in this category. While this wasn't quite as good as some of its other category grades, this isn't a bad score either. The nursing score is based on numerous factors. The most heavily weighted factor is the amount of time nurses spend with residents. This nursing home averages just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low figure. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality measures. Although this nursing home got dinged a bit for its nursing hours, it actually excelled in some of these quality metrics. With less than five percent of its patients sustaining pressure ulcers, it did well in this area. This can be an indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can typically be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as by having a system of moving a patient at least once a day.

The next category we rated was short-term care. It received an F in this area, which is a poor grade. We would not simply rule out a facility because of a single weak grade though. Short-term care scores are vital for residents looking for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally utilizes additional highly-skilled nursing. This includes a vast spectrum of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other types of therapy. It looks like this nursing home was below average in many staffing areas we assessed. The facility offered fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than most other facilities. The last metric we assessed in this area is the number of patients who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We discovered that just 4 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home, which is well below average. The combination of these poor statistics was damning for this facility's short-term care score.