Heritage Place

On top of being a first rate facility overall, this nursing home also excelled in the area of nursing, where it received an A+. Few nursing homes fared better in this category. Our nursing grade weighs a host of subcategories. The most heavily weighted variable is the amount of time nurses spend with patients. This facility provided 0.6 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 state in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by employing a protocol of turning patients more frequently.

On the list of its many elite grades, this nursing home was given a top-shelf short-term care score. In fact, we awarded it a grade of A in that area. Our short-term care grades are considered to be more meaningful for individuals in need of rehabilitation services. Rehabilitation typically utilizes additional highly-skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes not only nursing, but also physical and respiratory therapy, as well as other variations of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last measure we considered in this area is the number of patients who returned home from the nursing home. We found that 5.5 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

Adding to this facility's impressive resume, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A- for our inspections rating. Inspection grades weigh a host of factors included in a facility's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we consider is the number and severity of deficiencies. Places with better grades in this category tend to have very few severe deficiencies. This nursing home was hit with 5 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none of the deficiencies were considered to be major deficiencies. This means that the inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies to cause an imminent threat to resident health or safety. We should point out that deficiency-free inspection reports are uncommon in this industry.

Switching gears to our last category, this nursing home also performed admirably in our long-term care category. We awarded it a grade of B+ in this area. This finalized a very strong report card. When facilities receive this type of grade in this category it is a good sign for patient care and suggests that the facility is well-staffed with nurses aids. In addition to looking at the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home gave the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients, which is much higher than the majority of nursing homes. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.