Hobart Miller's Merry Manor

We want to draw your attention to the fact that this facility really outperformed its overall score in the category of inspections. In fact, it received an excellent inspection report this year. As a result, we gave it one of our best grades in this area with an A. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in calculating these inspection scores. One key factor is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of the deficiencies is arguably more important than the number of deficiencies, as some of these can be relatively insignificant. While this place had some deficiencies on its report, none were severe based on CMS' deficiency scale. A couple of minor deficiencies should not lead you to cross a nursing home off your list.

Adding to this nursing home's list of strengths, it also received an excellent nursing score. We gave them an impressive grade of B- in this area. Our nursing rating is mostly based on a facility's nurse staffing. This place provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident on a daily basis. This is a lower figure than we were hoping for. Lastly, we also looked at several nursing quality measures. Although this facility got docked a bit for nursing hours, it excelled in some of these quality-based measures. With less than five percent of its patients experiencing pressure ulcers, it did very well in this statistic. This is often an indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as by having a policy of moving residents more frequently.

This nursing home's third best category turned out to be its short-term care score, where it was given a C. In the category of short-term care, we endeavor to evaluate indicators of a nursing home's rehabilitation services. We look at a facility's skilled nursing services, including the ones performed by registered nurses and various therapists. In this nursing home's case, we were surprised to learn that it actually provides less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than the average facility. The hope is always that this does not adversely impact the quality of care. Lastly, we assessed the number of patients that ultimately returned home from this nursing home. We found that 4.2 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home. This figure was well below average.

The last category we looked at was long-term care, which is this nursing home's least impressive area. It received an F in this area, which is obviously concerning. Long-term care scores of this caliber generally are a bad sign for the quantity and quality of care provided by nurses and aids, as well as the levels of routine medical care available. On top of considering the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 93.33333 percent of its residents, which is a bit lower than we were hoping for. To our surprise, this facility was actually able to limit hospitalizations. With just 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this nursing home has less hospitalizations than many nursing homes. This was its best score in this category.