CareCore at Willowood’

One of the reasons this turned out to be a quality nursing home is that it earned a very impressive inspection rating. In fact, inspections turned out to be its best category grade. In that area, we awarded this facility an A+. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in computing our inspection grades. One critical factor is health 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 insignificant. This nursing home was assessed 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be severe deficiencies. This means that CMS didn't consider any of these deficiencies to cause an imminent risk to resident safety or health. A few minor dings aren't necessarily something to panic about.

This nursing home also received an impressive long-term care grade. Indeed, we awarded it an above average score of B in this area. Long-term care grades in this range generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine medical care. On top of assessing the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility vaccinated 92.519684 percent of its patients. This is somewhat lower than we were hoping for but still a decent percentage. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

The next area we looked at is short-term care. This nursing home received a very positive short-term care grade, with a B in this category. Our short-term care ratings are believed to be more meaningful for residents requiring rehabilitation from their nursing home. Rehabilitation typically utilizes additional skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes not merely nursing, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other variations of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last measure we looked at in this area is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the facility and return home. We discovered that 5.6 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home.

The next category we graded is nursing. In this category, we gave this facility a grade of C. Our nursing rating includes several factors, many of which are tied to nursing hours. This nursing home averages just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low figure. Finally, although this nursing home got dinged a bit for its nursing hours per resident, it excelled in a few of our quality metrics. With fewer than five percent of its patients suffering from pressure ulcers, it fared very well in this metric.