Higher Call Nursing Center

The main reason this turned out to be a decent nursing home is that it earned an excellent inspection grade. In fact, its inspection grade was far superior to its overall score. In our inspections category, we gave it an A-. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in computing our inspection ratings. One critical factor is health deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of deficiencies is arguably more important than the quantity of deficiencies, as some can be quite insignificant. This place was hit with 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but fortunately none were considered severe. This means that CMS did not deem any of the deficiencies an imminent threat to patient health or safety. We should point out that deficiency-free inspections are rare in this industry.

Another one of this facility's better category scores came in the category of long-term care. In that area, we gave this facility a B+. When nursing homes receive a score in this range in long-term care it generally means it has plenty of staff and is a quality place to reside on a permanent basis. Once we concluded our assessment of the volume of nursing care, we then analyzed the nursing home's vaccination statistics. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia is too frequently a life threatening condition for nursing home residents so we strongly prefer when a nursing home doesn't take any chances. Finally, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This facility's next best category grade came in the area of nursing. In that category, we gave this nursing home a grade of B-. There are quite a few factors within this area. Many of these criteria reflect nurse staffing. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a relatively low total compared to most other facilities. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this place surprisingly excelled in some of the quality-based metrics we assessed. In fact, it scored well when it comes to minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers. Many consider these areas to be measures of the quality of nursing care. In many cases, the quality of nursing care is as important as the number of hours of care offered.

Turning to our final area, this nursing home received a grade of C for short-term care, which is a respectable rating. Our short-term care scores are believed to be more important for patients needing rehabilitation from their nursing home. Rehabilitation generally utilizes additional highly-skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes not only nursing, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other forms of therapy. Unfortunately, we were not able to find information on registered nurse or physical therapy staffing for this nursing home. Finally, we assessed the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's patients returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their patients are able to return home so this figure is below average.