Westfield Nursing Center

Although this facility's overall grade was not a highlight, it received a somewhat respectable grade in the category of inspections. We awarded it a B- for that category, which is a decent score. Inspection scores are tied to several datapoints found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Deficiencies are a key item to look for on these inspections. Severe deficiencies indicate a risk to patient safety. This place was hit with 6 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none were considered to be major deficiencies. This means that the inspectors did not consider any of these deficiencies to create an immediate threat to patient health or safety. Lastly, this nursing home was cited by CMS for possible abuse or neglect. This is generally a really bad sign. We would never recommend this facility.

The second highest category we gave this nursing home in any area came in the area of long-term care, where we awarded it a B-. Long-term care scores are based in part on a facility's amount of nursing services. This means a broad scope of personal care services, ranging from assistance with activities of daily living to routine medical services. On top of assessing the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. Candidly, we were a bit worried that this nursing home administered the vaccine to just 83.40249 percent of its patients. On a more positive note, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

The third area we graded was short-term care. In that area, we gave this facility a decent grade of C. Our short-term care scores are meaningful for patients needing rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally requires more highly-skilled nursing. This means a vast scope of services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other types of therapy. In this nursing home's case, we were surprised to learn that it actually provides less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per patient than a typical facility. The hope is that this does not adversely impact the quality of care. Finally, we considered the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their patients are able to return home so this figure is below average.

Switching gears to the last category, we gave this facility a D in the area of nursing. This is the nursing home's worst category rating. Our nursing rating is based on quite a few factors, many of which are based on nursing hours. This facility provided just 0.2 hours of nursing care per resident daily. This number is significantly below the national average. To go along with its subpar totals in the area of nursing hours per patient, this facility also didn't fare as well in the quality-based measures we looked at in determining our nursing grades. We looked at the percentage of residents sustaining pressure ulcers and major falls. This facility had more pressure ulcers and falls than the average facility.