Whitestone Care Center

The main reason this ended up being a decent nursing home is that it received an elite inspection grade. Its inspection score was far superior to its overall grade. In the inspections category, we gave this facility a grade of A. Perhaps the most critical factor we look at in determining our inspection scores is deficiencies. Deficiencies are found on a facility's inspection reports. Facilities with better scores in this category most likely dodged the most severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. Fortunately, although this facility had a few minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you CMS didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Remember that deficiency-free inspection reports are uncommon in this industry.

Additionally, we also wanted to note that this nursing home was given impressive short-term care marks this year. We gave them one of our higher scores in this area, with a B. This proved to be the facility's second strongest grade. Our short-term care scores are likely more meaningful for individuals requiring rehabilitation from their nursing home. Rehabilitation typically utilizes additional skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes not just nursing services, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not all facilities employs these types of nurses. However, according to the information they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final datapoint we assessed in this category is the percentage of residents who ultimately were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that 5.7 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

This facility's third highest category was its long-term care score, where it was awarded a grade of C. In a long-term care environment, the primary goal is to maintain patients' quality of life and keep them safe. In addition to considering the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home provided the vaccine to 94.618835 percent of its patients, which is higher than the majority of nursing homes. Lastly, this facility was also able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

The final area we analyzed is nursing. In this category, we awarded this nursing home a grade of C. Our nursing grade is based on many subcategories, however, the paramount consideration is the quantity of nurse hours per patient per week. This facility averages 0.4 hours of nursing care per patient each day, which is well below average. Lastly, we like to look at quality-based statistics, such as the percent of patients who sustained pressure ulcers and major falls. These statistics are decent indicators of the quality of nursing care.