Westfield Quality Care of Aurora

While this facility's overall grade was as bad as it gets, it actually didn't perform terribly in the area of inspections. In fact, we awarded it a grade of B- for that category, which is one of our better scores. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in determining our inspection ratings. One of those factors is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of deficiencies is arguably more important than the number of deficiencies, as some of these can be quite minor. Fortunately, although this place had a few minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you CMS did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. A few minor deficiencies aren't necessarily the end of the world.

Unfortunately, this facility only received a grade of D for its nursing grade, which was actually one of its better category grades. Nursing ratings are mostly based on a facility's nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 3.6 hours of nursing care per resident per day, which is below the national average. To pair with its low totals in the area of nursing hours per resident, this place also did not fare as well in the quality-based measures we looked at in determining our nursing grades. We looked at the percent of patients sustaining pressure ulcers and major falls. This place had more pressure ulcers and falls than the average nursing home.

Sadly, we gave this facility an F for its short-term care grade. In the area of short-term care, we strive to assess measures of a facility's rehabilitation. We assess the facility's skilled nursing services, including the ones performed by registered nurses and physical, occupational and other therapists. Not surprisingly, we found that this nursing home provides far less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than the average facility. Finally, we considered the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. This wasn't a strength for this nursing home. We found that just 40.9 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most facilities, about half of their residents are able to return home so this is well below average.

The final category we looked at was long-term care. This nursing home was given a rock bottom grade of F in this area. For long-term care residents, the primary objective is to maintain patients' quality of life and keep them safe. Once we assessed the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we turned to the nursing home's vaccination data. We were pleased to learn that this nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its residents for pneumonia. Surprisingly, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. With only 0.48 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this facility has fewer hospitalizations than the average nursing home. Sadly, some of its other scores in this category were not as favorable as these.