Heritage Plaza Nursing Center

This place received a long-term care grade which is better than its overall grade. We gave this facility a B in this area. This really boosted its overall profile. When nursing homes receive this kind of score in long-term care it is a good sign for resident care and indicates that the nursing home is well-staffed with nurses aids. On top of looking at the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility provided the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is what we like to see. Pneumonia sadly can be a deadly illness for nursing home residents so we like it when a facility doesn't roll the dice on this issue. Finally, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This facility also excelled in the area of nursing, where it received an B. Our nursing rating is primarily based on a facility's nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures 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 nursing home the nation in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can typically be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as having a system of turning a patient more often.

Turning to our inspection category, it appears this facility has earned respectable inspections in recent years as well. We gave it a B- in this category. Inspection ratings account for several factors found on a facility's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we look at is the number and severity of deficiencies. This nursing home was hit with 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe deficiencies. This indicates that CMS did not consider any of the deficiencies to cause an immediate threat to resident safety or health. A couple of minor deficiencies should not lead you to cross a nursing home off your list.

This nursing home's least impressive area was short-term care, which is the final category we looked at. For this category, we gave this facility a grade of D. Our short-term care scores are based on a nursing home's quantity of skilled nursing services. This includes a wide scope of services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, not to mention other variations of therapy. With its weak score in this area, we weren't stunned to discover that this nursing home offered significantly fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other facilities. The last item we considered in this category is the percentage of patients that eventually returned home from the nursing home. This facility struggled quite a bit in this area as well, with just 5.1 percent of its patients returning home. Unfortunately, this was well below the national average.