The Hallmark

With more than 20 options to choose from in Houston, Texas, The Hallmark is one of many possibilities. This nursing home was given a very strong overall score of A, making it one of the top ten facilities in Houston. Based on our ratings, this place is just about as as good as it gets. Keep reading to see this nursing home's category grades, which also impressed us. You really can't do any better than a straight A report card.

To go along with its strong overall grade, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A+ for its nursing grade. Our nursing grade is based on many components, most of which are tied to quantities of nurse staffing. This particular facility provided 8.6 hours of nursing care per patient daily. This was one of the higher figures we found. Furthermore, a significant portion of this care was provided by registered nurses, which are highly skilled nurses. Both of these statistics are impressive. On top of providing high levels of care, this facility also performed well in several of the quality-based metrics we looked at. By way of illustration, in terms of the percentage of its residents suffering falls resulting in major injury, this facility performed as well as any nursing home the country. Preventing serious falls is generally a good indicator that a facility has quality controls in place. Major falls can many times be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

We also would like to draw your attention to the fact that this facility was awarded an elite grade of A in our short-term care category. Short-term care grades are based in part on a nursing home's quantity of skilled highly skilled professionals. This includes a vast spectrum of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other types of therapy. This facility excelled at the highest level in two key staffing areas we assessed. The facility supplied about 50% more care from registered nurses and physical therapists than the typical nursing home. Finally, we looked at the percentage of residents who ultimately were able to return home from this facility. We found that 0 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home.

This nursing home also was elite in the category of long-term care, where we gave it a score of A-. Few facilities performed better in this area. When nursing homes receive this type of score in long-term care it is usually a good sign for patient care and indicates that the facility is well-staffed with nurses aids. One of the datapoints we considered after this facility's quality nursing hours was vaccinations. This nursing home administered the pneumonia vaccination to 100 percent of its patients. Vaccines are a great way to avoid unnecessary hospitalizations for seniors. This combination proved to be successful as this place also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.85 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

Finally, this nursing home has earned near flawless inspections in recent years. We gave them an impressive grade of A- in this category. This is one of the few nursing homes in the nation to receive an A- or better in all four categories. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in determining our inspection ratings. One critical factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of these deficiencies is arguably more important than the quantity of deficiencies, as some deficiencies are relatively minor. Amazingly, this was one of the few nursing homes in the country that had no deficiencies whatsoever on its inspection report. This is very impressive. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.