The Lakes at Litchfield

Although we were not high on this facility overall, we awarded it a grade of B- for inspections. This grade is more respectable than this facility's overall grade. Inspection ratings take several factors into consideration, including deficiencies and federal fines. You can learn more about each of these issues by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Lastly, this nursing home was cited by CMS for possible abuse or neglect. This is generally a really bad sign. We would never recommend this facility.

We also want to point out that this facility received a decent grade in our nursing category. We awarded it a grade of B- in the area. Nursing ratings are largely associated with a facility's nurse staffing. This facility averages just 0.6 hours of nursing care per patient each day, which is well below average. Lastly, we also assessed some nursing quality-based metrics. While this place got docked a bit for nursing hours, it actually excelled in a few of these quality-based metrics. With less than five percent of its residents experiencing pressure ulcers, it performed remarkably well in this metric. This is typically an indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as by having a policy of turning a resident more often.

The third category we graded is short-term care, where this facility was awarded a B- in this area. Our short-term care scores are based on the facility's quantity of skilled nursing services. This includes a vast spectrum of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, in addition to other variations of therapy. Unfortunately, this place was below average in terms of its quantity of physical therapy and registered nurse hours provided to its patients based on the measures we assessed. The real question is whether this adversely impacted quality of care. The last metric we considered in this area is the number of residents that eventually returned home from the facility. We found that just 5.7 percent of this facility's residents returned home. This figure was below the national average.

Switching gears to our fourth category, this facility was given a B- in long-term care, which we consider to be an acceptable grade. For residents seeking a permanent place to live as opposed to rehabilitation, long-term care is a very important category. In addition to considering the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. We were not able to locate information on vaccination rates. Finally, this place keeps its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.