Milford Center

We also wanted to emphasize the fact that this facility has received nearly flawless inspections recently. We awarded them an A in this category. Inspection grades weigh several factors found on a facility's inspection report. One key criteria we weigh heavily is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with better scores in this category generally have few of these severe deficiencies. This nursing home received 2 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe. This means that the government inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies an immediate threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

On the list of its many elite grades, this facility was awarded first-rate long-term care score. In fact, it received a score of A- in this category. Long-term care ratings in this range generally require both 24/7 care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine medical care. One of the criteria we considered in addition to nursing hours is vaccines. This nursing home administered the pneumonia vaccine to 99.38461 percent of its residents. Vaccination is a great way to minimize negative health outcomes for the elderly population. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

To complement its strong performance in other areas, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A for our inspections rating. When determining a facility's nursing rating, we look at the number of hours nurses are caring for residents as well as the levels of training of those nurses. This nursing home provides 0.3 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 Massachusetts in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as employing a system of moving a patient at least once a day.

Moving on to our next area, this nursing home also performed well in our short-term care category. In fact, we gave it a grade of B+ in that category. This finalized a very impressive profile. In crafting these short-term care ratings, we look at the facility's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. Our goal is to devise a tool for comparing the rehabilitation services of various facilities. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. However, based on the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we considered the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 5.6 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.