Symphony Northwoods

While we did not rate this nursing home well overall, we would like to point out its decent health inspection reports in recent years. We awarded it a relatively respectable grade of B- in that category. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in calculating these inspection ratings. One key factor is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of deficiencies is usually more important than the quantity of deficiencies, as some can be quite insignificant. Fortunately, although this facility had a few minor dings on its report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones found in categories G through L. This means CMS didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, CMS cited this nursing home for possible abuse or neglect. Hopefully, its performance improves in the future, but until then we simply can't recommend this facility.

The next most favorable category we awarded this nursing home in any area came in the category of short-term care, where we awarded it a B-. In crafting our short-term care grades, we analyze the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The objective is to create a barometer for sizing up the rehabilitation services of nursing homes. Unfortunately, this facility was below average in terms of its level of physical therapy and registered nurse hours provided to its residents based on the metrics we assessed. The important question is whether this adversely affected quality of care. Finally, we assessed the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 5.1 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their patients are able to return home so this figure is below average.

The third best area we awarded this facility in any category came in the area of long-term care, where we gave it a C. Long-term care grades are generally used to score a nursing home's performance as a traditional convalescent home, as opposed to focusing on the skilled nursing services offered by a skilled nursing facility. Once we looked at the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we next considered the facility's vaccination data. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its residents for pneumonia, which is higher than the average nursing home. This facility also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

The last area we scored is nursing, which proved to be this nursing home's least impressive category. We awarded this nursing home a grade of D in that area. Our nursing score weighs several subcategories. The most heavily weighted one is the number of hours nurses spend with patients. This place averaged a meager 0.2 hours of nursing care per resident on a daily basis. This is an alarmingly low total. To go along with its low totals in the area of nursing hours per patient, this place also didn't perform as well in the quality-based measures we looked at in computing our nursing scores. We looked at the percent of patients sustaining pressure ulcers and major falls. This facility had more pressure ulcers and falls than the average nursing home.