The Health Center at the Hill at Whitemarsh

The Health Center at the Hill at Whitemarsh is a small non-profit nursing home located in Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania. With an A+ overall grade, we ranked this facility in the top five percent of all facilities in the country. This is just about as good of a place as you'll find. This facility was also given impressive scores in all of the major categories. More information about these categories can be found below.

On top of earning a great overall grade, this facility also received an A+ short-term care grade. Our short-term care scores are likely most critical for individuals requiring a nursing home for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally requires additional skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing means not just nursing, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other types of therapy. This place excelled in two key staffing areas we assessed. The facility supplied about 50% more care from physical therapists and registered nurses than the typical facility. Finally, we looked at the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that it outperformed the vast majority of nursing homes in the nation in this area with 69 percent of its patients returning home. This is a significantly higher rate than most nursing homes.

Another reason we rated this nursing home so highly is that it received an A+ nursing grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this category. Our nursing grade features a variety of subcategories. The most heavily weighted factor is the number of hours nurses spent with patients. This place provides an incredible 5.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Out of this total, many of those hours were provided by registered nurses, which is one of the most highly trained levels of nurses. On top of providing impressive levels of nursing care, this nursing home also excelled in several of the quality-based metrics we looked at. With less than five percent of its residents suffering from pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place the state in this category. This is often a good indicator that a nursing home has reliable quality controls. Many pressure ulcers can be avoided by providing better nursing care and a policy of turning residents more often.

We awarded this nursing home an A for our inspections rating. These inspection scores weigh several factors, including deficiencies and federal fines. You can find more information about each of these factors by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. While this nursing home had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are found in categories G through L. This tells you that the inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Turning to our next area, this facility also performed admirably in our long-term care category. In fact, we gave it an A for that area. This rounded out truly elite profile. Nursing homes that receive this kind of score in this category typically provide consistent around the clock care to make sure patients are well cared for. On top of considering the well above average level of care provided by nurses and other staff at this facility, we also were impressed by the facility's vaccination record. This nursing home administered the pneumonia vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is what we like to see. Finally, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had only 0.59 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.