West Bend Nursing and Rehabilitation

The main reason this facility received a decent overall grade is its impeccable health inspections in recent years. We gave them one of our better grades in that area, with an A. This is a much better score than the facility's overall grade, which was decent but not in the elite range. Arguably the most important factor we consider in determining our inspection grades is deficiencies. These deficiencies can be found on a nursing home's inspection reports. Nursing homes with better grades in this category typically avoided the most severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. Fortunately, although this place had some minor dings on its report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means that CMS didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. A few minor deficiencies should not stop you from considering a nursing home.

The second highest category we gave this facility in any area came in the category of short-term care, where we awarded it a B-. In computing these short-term care grades, we assess the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, speech therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The goal is to create a measure for sizing up the rehabilitation services of various nursing homes. Unfortunately, this nursing home was below average in terms of its level of physical therapy and registered nurse hours provided to its patients based on the measures we assessed. The critical question is whether this adversely impacted quality of care. The final measure we considered in this category is the number of residents that were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that just 4.9 percent of this facility's residents returned home. This figure was below average.

Another strength of this nursing home is its favorable grade in nursing. We awarded them one of our better scores in that area, with a grade of D. Our nursing score assesses the nursing home's nurse staffing levels. We weigh both the levels of skill of the nurses as well as the amount of time spent with residents. With only 0.4 hours of nursing care per patient on a daily basis, this facility's nurse staffing levels were significantly below average. Finally, we also looked at some nursing quality-based metrics in calculating our nursing ratings. This place fared well in the area of minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers.

The final category we looked at was long-term care, which is this nursing home's worst area. Sadly, it received a lowly F in this category, which is obviously very disappointing. In a long-term care environment, the primary goal is to maintain patients' quality of life and keep them safe. On top of considering the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is better than most nursing homes. Surprisingly, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. With only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this nursing home has fewer hospitalizations than the average nursing home. Sadly, some of its other scores in the category weren't as favorable as these.