The Willows at Fritz Farm

We also wanted to point out the fact that this facility has received near flawless government inspections in recent years. We awarded them an impressive grade of A+ in this area. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in computing these inspection grades. One critical factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of these deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some end up being quite insignificant. 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. Even some of the best nursing homes receive an occasional ding on their inspection report.

In addition, this nursing home received quality marks in the area of short-term care. For this reason, it was given one of our highest grades in that area with a score of A+. Short-term care ratings are critical for individuals seeking rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically utilizes more highly-skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes a vast range of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. This facility elevated its score in this category by offering more care from registered nurses to its patients than the typical nursing home. Finally, we looked at the number of residents who were able to return home from this nursing home. It outperformed the vast majority of nursing homes in the nation in this area with 68.4 percent of its residents returning home. This is a substantially higher rate than most nursing homes.

Among its many impressive grades, this facility received an excellent nursing grade. In fact, we gave it a grade of A- in that category. There are quite a few factors included in this category. Most of the criteria are tied to levels of nurse staffing. This facility provided 4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Approximately one quarter of those hours were provided by registered nurses, which are one of the most highly skilled levels of nurses. These are both impressive figures, which typically corresponds with quality care. Finally, this facility also performed well in several of the quality-based metrics we looked at. By way of illustration, in terms of the number of its patients suffering from pressure ulcers, this place performed better than the national average. This is typically an indicator that a facility has reliable quality controls in place. Pressure ulcers can frequently be prevented with better nursing care and having a policy of regularly turning residents to avoid bed sores.

The last area we looked at was long-term care. We awarded this facility a solid score in this category, with a grade of B-. Although this isn't on par with several of this facility's other grades, it is nevertheless not a bad grade. Our long-term care ratings are more meaningful for residents requiring more conventional assistance related to personal care. In addition to providing above average levels of nursing care, this nursing home administered the pneumonia vaccine to 100 percent of its patients. This figure is higher than many nursing homes. This combination proved to be effective as this place also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. It had only 0.84 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.