Westminster Towers

In addition to receiving a strong overall grade, this facility also earned excellent health inspections recently. We awarded it one of our best scores in that area, with a grade of A. Arguably the most critical factor we look at in computing our inspection ratings is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes with better grades in this category typically dodged the more severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. This facility was assessed 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be major deficiencies. This means that the government inspectors did not deem any of these deficiencies to create an imminent risk to patient health or safety. A couple minor dings are not necessarily the end of the world.

We also want to note the fact that this nursing home was given a high-end grade of A in our short-term care category. In the category of short-term care, we strive to assess indicators of a facility's rehabilitation. We look at the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses and physical, occupational and other therapists. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we assessed the percentage of patients that ultimately returned home from this facility. We found that 5.5 percent of this nursing home's residents were able to return home.

This nursing home also was awarded a favorable long-term care grade. In fact, we gave it an above average score of B+ in this category. Facilities that receive this type of grade in long-term care typically provide consistent 24/7 care to ensure patients are kept in good health. After looking at the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we next considered the facility's vaccination records. This nursing home vaccinated 97.69453 percent of its residents for pneumonia. Vaccines are critical to keeping patients out of the hospital. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. It had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Switching gears to our fourth category, this nursing home was awarded an excellent nursing rating. We gave it a B+ in that category, completing one of our better profiles. When computing a facility's nursing grade, we assess the quantity of hours nurses are caring for patients and the level of licensure of the nurses. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics and this place excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any nursing home the country in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as employing a protocol of turning residents more often.