Knollwood Nursing Center
87 Briarwood Circle, Worcester MA 01606 · (508) 853-6910 · 95.12% estimated occupancy 1Updated: Aug 1, 2020 · By Sara Levinsohn
Knollwood Nursing Center is a nursing home located in Worcester, Massachusetts. This city has a population of 181,315 people. Sporting an overall grade of A+, this nursing home is without a doubt a phenomenal nursing home. Not surprisingly, this is substantially better than most of the nursing homes in the city. This facility also received strong ratings in all four of our categories. More information about these categories can be found below.
Additional Details:
Accepts Medicare 1 :
Accepts Medicaid 1 : 82 Beds
CCRC :
Non profit - Corporation
Resident Council:
Family Council:
Medical Staff Hours Per Patient (2019)
Facility Inspections
To pair with a strong overall grade, we awarded this nursing home an A+ for inspections. Perhaps the most critical factor we look at in calculating our inspection grades is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a nursing home's inspection reports. Nursing homes with better scores in this category most likely dodged the more severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. While this facility had a few deficiencies on its government inspection report, none were severe based on CMS' scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.
Nurse Quality
One of the other reasons we rated this facility so highly is that it received a very impressive nursing rating. In that area, we gave this nursing home an A+. We weighed the skill-level of nurses at the nursing home, in addition to the number of hours the nurses were with residents, in determining our rating in this area. This facility provides an incredible 4.3 hours of nursing care per patient daily. Out of this total, many of the hours were provided by registered nurses, which is one of the more highly trained levels of nurses. In addition to providing impressive levels of care, this nursing home also excelled in the quality measures we assessed. It performed as well as any nursing home in the nation in the area of avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls.
Short-term Care Quality
This facility also was given an A+ for its short-term care grade. In the category of short-term care, we try to qualify measures of a nursing home's rehabilitation services. We look at a facility's skilled nursing services, such as the ones performed by registered nurses and physical, occupational and other therapists. One reason for this facility's strong score in this category is that it provides more care with registered nurses to its residents than the average nursing home. Finally, we looked at the percentage of residents who were able to return home from this nursing home. It fared as well as just about any nursing home in the country in this area with 70.6 percent of its residents returning home.
Long-term Care Quality
In the final category, this nursing home also received a first-rate long-term care rating, with a grade of A. This wrapped up a rare straight A report card. Nursing homes that do well in long-term care typically provide patients with better supervision and stay on top of routine medical care. In addition to assessing the well above average quantity of care provided by aids and other staff at this nursing home, we also were pleased by the facility's vaccination record. By way of example, this facility provided the pneumonia vaccine to 99.5984 percent of its patients, which is very impressive. Finally, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.
Overall Rating Over Time
Compared to national and state averages across all facilities.
Knollwood Nursing Center Quality Metrics
Minimizes Pressure Ulcers
This is the percentage of patients who suffered from a pressure ulcer. Pressure ulcers are damage to the skin due to staying in the same position for an excessive period of time.
Percent of Patients with Pressure Ulcers
Lower is Better
Minimizes Serious Falls
This indicates the percent of residents who have had a fall which caused serious injury.
Percent of Patients with Serious Falls
Lower is Better
Minimizes Urinary Tract Infections
This is the percent of residents that sustained a urinary tract infection. These infections may be associated with poor hygiene.
Percent of Patients with UTIs
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Psychotic Medication
This is the percent of residents given antipsychotic drugs. Antipsychotic drugs are given to patients for many medical conditions, including dementia. Sadly, in limited cases, high levels of antipsychotic drug use may mean that a nursing home is using these medications to control patient behavior.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Anxiety Medication
This is the percent of residents who were prescribed antianxiety drugs. These drugs are commonly given to residents experiencing anxiety or depression.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Managing Depression Among Residents
This indicates the percentage of patients demonstrating signs of depression.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriate Vaccine Usage
Measures the percentage of long-term patients that were administered the pneumonia and flu vaccines. Respiratory viruses can be very dangerous for seniors, making these vaccines critical to patient well-being.
Percent of Patients
Higher is Better
Residents Maintain Autonomy
This datapoint is a measure of the percentage of long-term residents that needed more assistance with activities of daily living over time. Activities of daily living include activities such as dressing and taking a bath.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Ability to Keep Residents Mobile
Measures the percentage of long-term care patients who remained mobile levels.
Percentage of Residents
Higher is Better
Hospitalizations
This metric tracks the number of times residents are hospitalized per thousand days of patient care. Staying out of the hospital is key to maintaining the physical health of nursing home patients.
Hospitalizations per 1,000 resident days
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Rehospitalizations
This metric tracks the number of rehospitalizations per thousand days of short-term care.
Percentage of Residents Rehospitalized
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: ER Visits
This is the number of times residents are sent to the emergency room per 1,000 days of short-term patient care. There is typically a correlation between having fewer emergency room visits and the quality of rehabilitation.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Facilitates Functional Improvement
This is a measure of the percentage of short-term care residents that experienced functional improvements, such as with activities of daily living. Many argue that this is a reasonable measure of a nursing home's rehabilitation performance.
Percentage of Resident
Higher is Better