Whispering Pines Nursing and Rehabilitation

In addition to being a great nursing home overall, it also received A+ government inspections in recent years. Its inspections were virtually perfect. Inspection ratings account for several factors found on a facility's inspection report. One key criteria we consider is the number and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better scores in this area generally have very few of these severe deficiencies. Fortunately, although this nursing home had a few minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means that CMS did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Adding to its dominant assessments in other areas, we awarded this nursing home a score of A for our long-term care rating. Long-term care ratings of this caliber generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine healthcare services. On top of assessing the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility provided the vaccine to 94.80519 percent of its residents, which is higher than the majority of nursing homes. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

Turning the page to our third category, we awarded this facility a grade of A- for our short-term care rating. This is a very strong rating. Our short-term care ratings are considered to be more meaningful for people needing rehabilitation from their nursing home. Rehabilitation generally utilizes additional skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing means not just nursing, but also physical and occupational therapy, as well as other variations of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. However, based on the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we assessed the number of patients that who were able to eventually return home from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home.

Switching gears to our last area, this nursing home was awarded an extremely favorable nursing rating. In fact, we awarded it a grade of A- in this area, resulting in this facility receiving straight A's. Our nursing grade looks at the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. We weigh both the levels of training of the nurses as well as the quantity of hours spent with patients. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics and this facility excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place the nation in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as employing a policy of turning a patient more often.