Highland Oaks

On top of being a first rate facility overall, this facility also performed well in our inspections category, where it earned a grade of A+. Very few nursing homes performed this well in this area. Inspection scores weigh several factors included in a facility's inspection reports. One key criteria we weigh heavily is the number and severity of deficiencies. Places with higher grades in this category tend to have very few of these severe deficiencies. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that we have information about this nursing home's deficiencies. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Another reason we rated this nursing home so highly is that it received an A+ nursing grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this category. Our nursing score looks at the facility's level of nurse staffing. We weigh both the levels of training of the nurses and the quantity of hours spent with residents. This facility provided 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures and this place excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place the country in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as having a protocol of turning a patient even once per day.

An additional strength for this facility was long-term care, where it was awarded an A+ grade. This is flat out as strong as it gets in this category. When nursing homes receive this kind of score in long-term care it is typically a good sign for resident care and suggests that the place is well-staffed with nurses aids. On top of looking at the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility provided the vaccine to 98.52941 percent of its patients, which is significantly higher than the majority of nursing homes. Finally, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. It had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

In the final category we rated, this facility was given a very favorable grade of A- in our short-term care category. With this score, the nursing home finished off a straight A profile. In forming our short-term care grades, we assess the facility's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. The goal is to create a tool for sizing up the rehabilitation services of different facilities. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. However, based on the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Lastly, we looked at 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.