Western Md Hospital Center

On top of earning a great overall grade, this nursing home also performed well in our inspections category, which is based on the facility's inspection reports. We awarded it an A in this category. Inspection scores are tied to datapoints located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Facilities that excel in this area tend to have very few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these nursing homes generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. Although this nursing home had some deficiencies on its inspection report, none of them were severe 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 received a very impressive nursing grade. In fact, this turned out to be its second best category grade. In that area, we awarded this facility a grade of A. Nursing grades are primarily tied to the facility's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.5 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 many times be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

Turning our third category, this nursing home was awarded a top-shelf short-term care score. In fact, we awarded it a score of A in that category. Short-term care ratings are based on the nursing home's quantity of highly-skilled skilled healthcare professionals. This means a broad range of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, in addition to other types of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Lastly, we considered the number of patients that eventually returned home from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home.

In the last area, we gave this facility an A for its long-term care rating. This topped off a very strong profile. For prospective residents looking for a permanent place to live as opposed to rehabilitation, long-term care grades are very important. In addition to looking at the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home gave the vaccine to 61.333336 percent of its patients. This is somewhat below what we expected but still a decent figure. Although its vaccination rate was a bit lower than we had hoped, we were pleased to find nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.