Wakefield Health Care Center

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a great nursing home is that it earned an A+ inspection grade. This is just about as good as it gets in this category. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in determining these inspection scores. One of those factors is health deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of the deficiencies is arguably more important than the number of deficiencies, as some deficiencies are quite minor. Fortunately, although this facility had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you that the inspectors didn't deem 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.

On the list of its many impressive scores, this facility was awarded a top-shelf long-term care grade. In fact, it received a grade of A in this area. Nursing homes that receive this type of score in this category typically provide consistent around the clock care to ensure residents are kept in good health. Once we assessed the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then analyzed the nursing home's vaccination statistics. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is much higher than the vast majority of nursing homes. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Adding to its impressive resume, this nursing home also excelled in our nursing category. In fact, we awarded it a grade of A for that category. In calculating a nursing home's nursing score, we weigh the amount of time nurses are seeing residents and the levels of training of the nurses. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at some nursing quality-based metrics in determining our nursing grades. This facility performed very well in the area of avoiding major falls and pressure ulcers. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

In our final area, this nursing home also was awarded a first-rate short-term care score, with a grade of A-. This completed a very favorable report card. Our short-term care scores are likely most important for people in need of rehabilitation from their nursing home. Rehabilitation typically utilizes more highly-skilled nursing. Skilled nursing means not only nursing, but also physical and respiratory therapy, as well as other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final statistic we considered in this category is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the facility and return home. We discovered that 0 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home.