Norwood Healthcare

This nursing home received a solid overall grade as described above, but it really excelled in the area of nursing care, with an impressive grade of A- in this category. In determining our nursing scores, we analyze both the number of hours nurses spend with residents and the skill levels of the nurses. This nursing home provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed 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 place Massachusetts in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by employing a protocol of turning patients more frequently.

This facility also was awarded a positive long-term care grade. In fact, we awarded it a grade of B+ in that area, which happens to be one of our better. Nursing homes that receive this type of grade in this category typically provide consistent around the clock care to ensure residents are well cared for. In addition to considering the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 76.190475 percent of its patients, which is a bit lower than we expected. While its vaccination rate was a bit lower than we hoped for, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

In addition, we gave this nursing home a B in our short-term care category. This is one of our higher scores. Our short-term care ratings are arguably most critical for patients needing rehabilitation services. Rehabilitation usually mandates more skilled nursing services. This includes not just nursing services, but also physical and occupational therapy, as well as other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we assessed the percentage of residents that were able to return home from this facility. We found that 4.9 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home.

In our final category of inspections, this facility received a grade that's as bad as it gets. With an F in the inspection category, this facility's overall grade was pulled down significantly. You should pay close attention to any deficiencies on a nursing home's inspection reports when it receives this poor of an inspection grade. We recommend you scrutinize the severity of the deficiencies. This facility was hit with 2 deficiencies on its inspection report. The only favorable thing we found is that none of these deficiencies were in the categories that suggest that they created a risk to patient safety or health. Finally, we also would like to draw your attention to the fact that this place received large government fines recently of more than $100,000. This generally signifies that a facility's poor track record has been an issue for more than one year.