Highbanks Care Center

Although we did not rate this facility favorably overall, we want to point out its nearly flawless health inspections in recent years. We awarded them an A in this category. Inspection ratings are based on several pieces of information located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Deficiencies are an important thing to look for on these reports. Most importantly, you should avoid facilities that have severe deficiencies linked to risks to resident well being. While this place had a few deficiencies on its government inspection report, none were serious based on CMS' deficiency scale. A few minor deficiencies are not the end of the world.

As it turns out, this facility only earned a grade of D for its long-term care score, which was actually one of its higher category grades. When facilities receive a grade in this range in long-term care it typically means the facility didn't perform well in our measures relating to resident care. Once we assessed the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination records. We were disappointed to learn that this facility vaccinated a relatively low 48.9899 percent of its residents against pneumonia. To our surprise, this place was actually able to limit hospitalizations. With just 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this nursing home has less hospitalizations than most nursing homes. This was its best score in this category.

We were stunned to find that this nursing home also excelled in the category of nursing. In fact, we gave it a grade of D for that category, which is one of our highest grades. Our nursing score is based on several factors. The most heavily weighted factor is the quantity of hours nurses spent with residents. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low total compared to most nursing homes. Lastly, we also looked at some nursing quality-based metrics in calculating our nursing grades. This nursing home performed well in the area of avoiding major falls and pressure ulcers.

The next category we analyzed was short-term care. Unfortunately, we gave it an F in this category, which is a rock bottom grade. In calculating our short-term care ratings, we size up the nursing home's levels of skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists occupational therapists and other types of therapists. This grade is typically a useful assessment of a facility's rehabilitation services. Based on its poor grade in this category, we were not stunned to learn that this nursing home provides substantially fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most facilities. The final item we looked at in this category is the number of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We discovered that just 0 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home, which is well below average. The combination of these poor metrics sunk this facility's short-term care score.