Willows Center

The main reason this facility received a decent overall grade is its impeccable inspections in recent years. We awarded it one of our higher grades in that category, with an A. This is a notably better score than the place's overall grade, which was decent but certainly not elite. Our inspection ratings weigh a host of factors included in a facility's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we consider is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Nursing homes with better scores in this area typically have few severe deficiencies. Fortunately, although this nursing home had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means the inspectors didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. A couple of minor deficiencies shouldn't stop you from considering a nursing home.

One of the other reasons we rated this nursing home so highly is that it received a very impressive nursing rating. Nursing proved to be its second best category grade. In that category, we awarded this facility an B-. The nursing score analyzes several components, but the main one is the quantity of nurse hours spent with patients. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a much lower figure than we are used to seeing. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this facility actually excelled in some of the quality measures we assessed. It performed well in terms of avoiding major falls and pressure ulcers. We consider these areas to be indicators of the quality of nursing care. In many cases, the quality of nursing care is as important as the number of hours of care offered.

This nursing home's third most favorable category ended up being short-term care. In that category, we awarded this nursing home a C. In crafting our short-term care ratings, we quantify the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. Our objective is to devise a barometer for comparing the rehabilitation services of various facilities. Unfortunately, we found that this nursing home provided fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other nursing homes. The tricky part is determining what effect this had on the quality of care. Lastly, we considered the number of patients who ultimately were able to return home from this facility. We found that 4.6 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home. This figure was actually quite a bit below the national average.

The next category we graded was long-term care, which was this facility's worst area. We awarded this facility a grade of D in that category. For long-term care residents, the facility's primary objective is to keep patients healthy and safe. This is different than skilled nursing or short-term care where the goal is to rehabilitate residents. One of the criteria we considered in addition to nurse's aid hours was vaccines. Thankfully, this nursing home administered the pneumonia vaccine to 100 percent of its residents. Surprisingly, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. With just 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this facility has fewer hospitalizations than the average nursing home. Sadly, some of its other scores in the category weren't as favorable as these.