Victoria Haven

In addition to being a first rate nursing home overall, this facility also fared well in long-term care, where it earned an A+. Few facilities fared better in this area. When nursing homes receive this kind of score in this category it is a good sign for patient care and suggests that the nursing home is well-staffed with nurses aids. One of the factors we considered in addition to nursing hours was vaccinations. This nursing home administered the pneumonia vaccination to 100 percent of its patients. Vaccination is a proven method to minimize unnecessary deaths for the elderly population. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0.03 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

We also awarded this nursing home a grade of A+ for its nursing grade. Our nursing score is primarily based on a nursing home's nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality measures and this facility excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place Massachusetts in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as employing a system of turning patients more frequently.

This nursing home also was given an A+ for its short-term care score. In calculating our short-term care grades, we look at a nursing home's levels of highly skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists speech therapists and other types of therapists. This score is more often than not a fair measure of a nursing home's rehabilitation. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not all facilities employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the information they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Finally, we assessed the number of patients who returned home from this nursing home. We found that 6 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home.

Adding to its impressive category grades, this facility also excelled in inspections, where it received a score of A. This wrapped up a straight A report card for this nursing home. Arguably the most critical factor we consider in determining our inspection scores is deficiencies. Deficiencies can be found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Facilities with better grades in this area typically avoided the most severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. 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. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.