Highfield Gardens Care Center

On top of earning a strong overall grade, this facility fared even better in our inspections category which is associated with the nursing home's recent government inspection reports. We gave it an A for that area, which is one of our best scores. Inspection grades are based on many pieces of information located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that score well in this category tend to have few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these places should not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Adding to this nursing home's list of achievements, it also was given a superb long-term care score. We awarded them a dominant grade of A- in this area. When facilities receive this type of grade in long-term care it is typically a good sign for patient care and suggests that the place is well-staffed with nurses and aids. In addition to assessing the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 96.3964 percent of its patients, which is very impressive. Pneumonia tragically can be a dangerous condition for nursing home patients so we like it when a facility doesn't leave this to chance. 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 number.

This nursing home was awarded its next most favorable category grade in the area of short-term care. We awarded this nursing home a B- in this category, which is a respectable score. Our short-term care ratings are considered to be more important for residents in need of rehabilitation from their nursing home. Rehabilitation typically utilizes more highly-skilled nursing. This includes not merely nursing services, but also physical and respiratory therapy, as well as other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not all facilities employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we assessed the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 4.8 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their patients are able to return home so this figure is below average.

The next category we rated was nursing. In that area, we awarded this facility a solid grade of B-. This turned out to be this facility's least impressive area. Our nursing rating is based on the facility's level of nurse staffing. We weigh both the levels of skill of the nurses as well as the number of hours spent with residents. This facility provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident daily. This is a much lower figure than we were hoping for. Finally, we look at quality-based statistics, such as the percentage of residents who suffered pressure ulcers and major falls. Sometimes these data points are indicators of the quality of nursing care.