West Hickory Haven

One of the reasons this place is a strong facility is that it earned a very impressive inspection rating. Inspections turned out to be its best category. In this area, we gave it an A-. Perhaps the most important factor we consider in computing our inspection ratings is deficiencies. Deficiencies can be found on a facility's inspection reports. Facilities with better scores in this category typically dodged the most severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. Fortunately, although this place had a few minor dings on its report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones found in categories G through L. This means the government inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. We should note that deficiency-free inspections are uncommon in the industry.

This nursing home performed well in our nursing category. In fact, we awarded it a grade of A- for that category, which is one of our highest scores. Our nursing score is mostly based on the facility's nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This nursing home performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a facility has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can typically be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

Turning to our third category, this facility also earned a grade of B+ for its short-term care rating. This is a well above average score in this area. With our short-term care assessment, we strive to forge a sound measure for rehabilitation. In doing so, we look at the nursing home's scope of highly-skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as speech therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we considered the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 0 percent of this facility's patients returned home.

Turning to the final area, this nursing home was awarded a respectable long-term care grade. Even though this wasn't quite as dominant as a few of its other grades, this is truly not the end of the world. For long-term care residents, the nursing home's primary goal is to maintain residents' quality of life and keep them safe. After assessing the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination data. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents for pneumonia, which is better than the average nursing home. This nursing home was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. It had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.