West Newton Healthcare

In addition to being a first rate facility overall, this nursing home also fared well in our long-term care category, where it earned an A+. Few facilities performed better in this category. For residents looking for a permanent residence as opposed to skilled nursing, long-term care grades are an important measure. On top of assessing the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home vaccinated 83.66534 percent of its residents. This is a few points less than we anticipated but still a reasonably acceptable figure. 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 figure.

We also wanted to emphasize the fact that this facility received an impressive grade of A in our nursing category. Nursing ratings are mostly based on a nursing home's nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 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 place 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.

This nursing home also received an impressive short-term care grade. In fact, we awarded it an above average grade of B in this area. In the area of short-term care, we strive to evaluate indicators of a facility's rehabilitation services. We look at the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses and various therapists. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes 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 last statistic we assessed in this category is the percentage of patients who who were able to eventually return home from the nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

Finally, we also found that this nursing home has received favorable government inspections in recent years. In fact, we awarded it a score of B in this area. Inspection ratings are based on several pieces of information located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Facilities that excel in this area tend to have few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these places generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. This facility received 5 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be severe. This tells you that CMS didn't deem any of these deficiencies to be an immediate threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.