The Highlands of Dallas

One of the reasons this place received a great overall grade is that it received a very impressive nursing rating. In fact, nursing ended up being its best category. In that category, we gave this nursing home an A-. In computing a facility's nursing rating, we look at the amount of time nurses commit to residents as well as the levels of training of those nurses. This particular nursing home provided 0 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also looked at some nursing quality measures in determining our nursing grades. This nursing home performed very well in terms of avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

This nursing home also excelled in inspections. In fact, we gave it an A- for that area, which is one of our best scores. This is one of the few facilities with an overall grade in this range which earned multiple category grades this high. Our inspection grades are tied to items located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Facilities that receive favorable grades in this area typically have few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these facilities should not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. Fortunately, although this place had a few minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you the government inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. The fact that the deficiencies were relatively minor leaves us less concerned with this inspection report.

This nursing home received an impressive short-term care score as well. We awarded it one of our higher scores in that area with a grade of B+. Our short-term care scores are crucial for people seeking rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally utilizes higher levels of skilled nursing services. This includes a wide spectrum of services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. We weren't able to track down information about this nursing home's registered nurse or physical therapy staffing. The last measure we looked at in this area is the number of residents who were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

The last area we assessed was long-term care. In this category, we gave this nursing home an acceptable grade of B-. This actually proved to be this facility's weakest category. In crafting these long-term care scores, we analyze the nursing home's ability to maintain its permanent residents' health and quality of life. On top of considering the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 99.55357 percent of its patients. Lastly, this facility was also able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.