Willowbrook Nursing Center

On top of performing well in its overall grade, this facility performed at an even higher level in the area of inspections. In fact, it received a nearly flawless inspection report this year. As a result, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in calculating these inspection grades. One critical factor is deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of deficiencies is usually more important than the quantity of deficiencies, as some end up being quite minor. This nursing home was hit with 6 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none were considered to be severe deficiencies. This means that the inspectors did not deem any of these deficiencies an immediate risk to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Among the reasons we rated this facility so well is that it received a strong long-term care score. In fact, long-term care ended up being its second most favorable category score. In that area, we gave this nursing home a grade of A. When facilities receive a grade in this range in this category it generally means it has plenty of staff and is an overall good place to reside on a permanent basis. After considering the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we turned to the facility's vaccination data. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its residents against pneumonia. Vaccines are critical to keeping residents out of the hospital. Lastly, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

The third highest category we gave this facility in any category came in the area of short-term care, where we awarded it a grade of B-. Short-term care ratings are critical for patients looking for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally mandates more highly-skilled nursing. Skilled nursing means a wide scope of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. Unfortunately, it does not appear that this facility provided registered nurse or physical therapist staffing data. The last statistic we assessed in this area is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We discovered that just 5.6 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home, which is actually below average.

The final area we assessed is nursing, which is this facility's weakest category. We gave this facility a D in this category. Of course, this score hurt the nursing home's overall profile to some degree. Our nursing score analyzes many data points, however, the paramount one is the level of nurse hours per patient per week. This facility averaged only 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is an alarmingly low total. While this nursing home's nursing hours are below average, it surprised us in some of the qualitative areas in this category. In particular, we were pleased to find that its residents are sustaining fewer pressure ulcers than the national average.