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.

This facility also was awarded a fine long-term care score. In fact, this ended up being this nursing home's third best category grade. In that area, this facility received a score of A. When nursing homes receive this type of grade in long-term care it is typically a good sign for patient care and suggests that the facility is well-staffed with nurses and aids. In addition to considering the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home administered the vaccine to 98.61111 percent of its patients, which is significantly higher than the majority of nursing homes. Lastly, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

Switching gears to the next category, this nursing home also performed well in our short-term care category. In fact, we awarded it a grade of A- for that area. This finalized truly elite report card. In determining these short-term care ratings, we quantify the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, speech therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. Our goal is to create a scale for comparing the rehabilitation services of different facilities. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not all facilities employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Finally, we looked at the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.