Newton Wellesley Center for Alzheimer's Care
694 Worcester Rd, Framingham MA 01701 · (781) 237-6400 · 96.09% estimated occupancy 1Updated: Aug 1, 2020 · By Nick Lata
Newton Wellesley Center for Alzheimer's Care is an average-sized nursing home located in Framingham, Massachusetts. This facility received an overall grade of B-, which is a solid rating. The nursing homes in Framingham received a city grade of A- so this isn't the only reliable option in the city. The best part of this place's report card was its exemplary inspection reports. We discuss inspections in the next paragraph.
Additional Details:
Accepts Medicare 1 :
Accepts Medicaid 1 : 110 Beds
CCRC :
For profit - Corporation
Resident Council:
Family Council:
Medical Staff Hours Per Patient (2019)
Facility Inspections
To go along with its relatively modest overall grade, we awarded this nursing home an A+ for its inspection grade. This is far better than the facility's overall rating. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in computing these inspection grades. One key factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of deficiencies is arguably more important than the quantity of deficiencies, as some of these end up being quite minor. It doesn't look like 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.
Long-term Care Quality
This nursing home also was given a strong long-term care grade. As a matter of fact, we gave them a grade of B+ in this category, which happens to be one of our better. When nursing homes receive a grade in this range in long-term care it generally means it has plenty of staff and is an overall good place to reside on a permanent basis. On top of assessing the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility provided the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is what we like to see. Pneumonia sadly is often a life threatening ailment for nursing home patients so we like it when a facility doesn't leave this to chance. Lastly, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0.37 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.
Nurse Quality
We also awarded this facility a favorable grade in nursing. This facility earned a grade of B in this category, which is one of our better grades. We assessed the levels of nurses at the facility, in addition to the quantity of time those nurses spent with residents, in determining our rating in this area. This nursing home provides 3.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics and this facility excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any nursing home the country in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as employing a protocol of moving patients more frequently.
Short-term Care Quality
The next area we rated is short-term care, which proved to be this facility's worst area. It received an F for this area, which is certainly very disappointing. Our short-term care grade is typically employed to gauge a facility's performance with rehabilitation. To have highly graded rehabilitation services, facilities generally must provide better levels of highly skilled nursing services. These types of services include registered nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists and other highly trained professionals. Unfortunately, we learned that this nursing home offers fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per patient than most nursing homes. Finally, we looked at the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. This definitely wasn't a strength for this facility. We found that just 13.6 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most nursing homes, around half of their residents are able to return home so this is well below average.
Overall Rating Over Time
Compared to national and state averages across all facilities.
Newton Wellesley Center for Alzheimer's Care Quality Metrics
Minimizes Pressure Ulcers
This indicates the percentage of residents who sustained a pressure ulcer. Pressure ulcers, which are also referred to as bed sores, are often the result of residents staying in one position for too long. Better nursing protocols can reduce the percentage of residents in a nursing home who sustain pressure ulcers.
Percent of Patients with Pressure Ulcers
Lower is Better
Minimizes Serious Falls
This metric is a measure of the percent of long-term stay residents who have had falls which resulted in major injury. This is one of the statistics we use in computing our nursing grades.
Percent of Patients with Serious Falls
Lower is Better
Minimizes Urinary Tract Infections
This tells you the percentage of residents who sustained a urinary tract infection. UTI's are often linked to facilities with worst hygiene practices. Better hygiene protocols reduces the number likelihood of residents sustaining infections. We want to point out that this metric is affected by by the fact that nursing homes have incongruent reporting standards for urinary tract infections.
Percent of Patients with UTIs
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Psychotic Medication
This indicates the percentage of patients who were given antipsychotic medications. Antipsychotic medications are prescribed to residents for a variety of conditions, including Alzheimer's or other dementias. Unfortunately, in limited situations, increased usage of these drugs may suggest that a nursing home is using these drugs to control patient behavior.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Anxiety Medication
This is the percent of residents who were given antianxiety medications. Antianxiety drugs are prescribed to patients suffering from anxiety or depression.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Managing Depression Among Residents
This is the percent of residents demonstrating signs of depression.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriate Vaccine Usage
This tells you the percent of residents who were given the flu and pneumonia vaccines. Higher vaccination rates should be the norm at this point.
Percent of Patients
Higher is Better
Residents Maintain Autonomy
This metric is a measure of the percent of long-term care patients that needed increased assistance with activities of daily living over time. ADL's include activities such as getting dressed and continence. Many argue this is a reasonable measure of a resident's well-being.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Ability to Keep Residents Mobile
This is a measure of the percent of long-term stay residents who were able to retain mobility. Many in the industry argue that the ability to move around is important for patients well-being.
Percentage of Residents
Higher is Better
Hospitalizations
This metric measures the number of times residents are hospitalized per thousand days of patient care.
Hospitalizations per 1,000 resident days
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Rehospitalizations
This is the number of times residents are rehospitalized per thousand days of short-term care. There is typically a correlation between having fewer hospitalizations and a nursing homes short-term rehabilitation performance.
Percentage of Residents Rehospitalized
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: ER Visits
This indicates the number of emergency room visits per 1,000 days of short-term care. There is typically a correlation between staying out of the emergency room and the overall quality of rehabilitation.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Facilitates Functional Improvement
This indicates the percent of short-term care patients that experienced functional improvements, such as with activities of daily living. Higher levels of autonomy with ADL's generally correlates with superior rehabilitation.
Percentage of Resident
Higher is Better