Washington Square Healthcare Center

On top of receiving a great overall grade, this facility fared even better in the area of inspections which is based on the facility's recent inspection reports. In fact, we gave it an A for this category, which is one of our highest scores. Our inspection scores are based on many datapoints found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that receive favorable grades in this area typically have very few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these places generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. Fortunately, although this facility had a few minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means that the government inspectors didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. A couple relatively minor dings aren't necessarily the end of the world.

Adding to its profile, this facility also earned a grade of B for its short-term care rating. This is an above average grade in this area. In crafting these short-term care ratings, we look at the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, speech therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. Our purpose is to create a barometer for sizing up the rehabilitation services of different facilities. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not all facilities employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we considered the number of residents who returned home from this facility. We found that 0 percent of this facility's patients returned home.

This facility's next best category grade came in the area of nursing. In that category, we gave this nursing home a grade of B-. This wasn't quite on par with some of its other category grades mentioned above. The nursing score consists of several components, however, the main one is the number of nurse hours spent with patients. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a relatively low total compared to most other facilities. Lastly, our nursing scores also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. Despite not having the highest total nursing hours, this facility performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is usually a reliable indicator that a nursing home has quality controls in place. Many falls could be avoided if a nursing home supplies enough nurses to assist its patients.

The final area we rated is long-term care. We gave it a B- in this category. This is basically a middle of the road grade in this area. In crafting our long-term care scores, we look at the facility's ability to maintain its permanent residents' health and quality of life. In addition to considering the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 98.36066 percent of its residents, which is higher than most nursing homes. Finally, this place was also able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.