The Fountains at Washington House

We gave this facility an A in the area of short-term care. In computing our short-term care scores, we assess a facility's levels of skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists respiratory therapists and other highly skilled individuals. This rating is generally a useful measure of the facility's ability to rehabilitate patients. We were not able to track down registered nurse or physical therapy staffing data for this facility. The last datapoint we looked at in this area is the number of residents that ultimately were able to return home from the facility. We found that 5.8 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

One of the other reasons we graded this facility so highly is that it received a very impressive nursing score. This turned out to be its second best category grade. In that category, we gave this nursing home an B+. There are numerous factors within this category. Many of the criteria reflect the quantity and quality of nurse staffing. This facility provided 0 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics 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 nursing home the state in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as employing a policy of moving a resident more frequently.

In addition, we gave this nursing home a B+ in our long-term care category. This happens to be one of our more favorable grades. Facilities that receive this type of score in this category typically provide consistent around the clock care to make sure residents are well cared for. After assessing the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we turned to the facility's vaccination records. It does not appear that this nursing home provided information about vaccinations. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

The last category we assessed is inspections. This facility did not receive favorable government inspections in recent years. We gave it an F in this category. This pulled down this facility's overall grade quite a bit. When a nursing home has this poor of an inspection grade, you should look for severe deficiencies on its inspection report. Severe deficiencies indicate a threat to patient safety. This facility had a deficiency on its inspection report. We were relieved to find that it wasn't in a category that suggests that it posed a threat to patient safety or health. Finally, we would like to draw your attention to the fact that this nursing home received large government fines recently amounting to more than $100,000. This often signifies that a facility's bad track record spanned several years.