Waverly Heights

In addition to being a great overall grade, this facility also received A+ health inspections in recent years. Its inspections were virtually flawless. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in determining our inspection scores. One key factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of deficiencies is arguably more important than the number of deficiencies, as some are relatively insignificant. Although this nursing home had a few deficiencies on its government inspection report, none of them were major deficiencies based on CMS' deficiency scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This nursing home also was given an A+ for its long-term care score. Facilities that receive this type of score in long-term care typically provide consistent around the clock care to ensure residents are kept in good health. In addition to looking at the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients, which is very impressive. Pneumonia is too frequently a deadly condition for nursing home residents so we like it when a nursing home does not leave its residents vulnerable. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. It had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

The next area we analyzed is short-term care. This facility also was awarded an A+ short-term care grade, rendering it one of the few facilities to receive multiple A+ category grades. In determining our short-term care scores, we scrutinize a facility's levels of skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists occupational therapists and other highly skilled individuals. This grade is often a solid measure of a facility's ability to rehabilitate patients. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final datapoint we assessed in this category is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the facility and return home. We found that 6 percent of this facility's residents returned home.

In our final category, this nursing home was awarded another A+ for its nursing rating, topping off a truly spectacular profile of straight A+'s in each of our categories. Our nursing rating analyzes the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. We consider both the levels of training of those nurses as well as the quantity of hours spent with residents. This nursing home averages 0.6 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics 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 the state in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as employing a protocol of moving residents at least once a day.