Windham House of Hattiesburg

On top of being an elite nursing home overall, this facility excelled in the area of inspections, where it received an A+. Very few places performed as well in this category. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in determining these inspection ratings. One critical factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of the deficiencies is arguably more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some can be relatively minor. While this facility had some deficiencies on its government inspection report, none of them were serious based on CMS' scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This facility also was awarded a very impressive long-term care grade. In fact, this turned out to be its second most impressive category grade. In that area, we gave this facility a grade of A. Nursing homes that excel in long-term care tend to provide residents with more supervision and stay on top of routine healthcare services. On top of assessing the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility provided the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients, which is far higher than most nursing homes. Finally, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

Adding to its profile, this facility also earned a grade of B+ for its nursing rating. This is a well above average score in this category. Our nursing grade weighs a handful of factors, many of which are based on nursing hours. This facility provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed some nursing quality-based metrics in determining our nursing grades. This nursing home performed very well in the area of minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

The final category we looked at was short-term care, in which this facility received a B. This actually is this nursing home's weakest category. A nursing home is doing something right when it's lowest grade still rates higher than most facilities. With our short-term care assessment, we try to craft a meaningful gauge for rehabilitation. In doing so, we assess a facility's scope of highly-skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as respiratory therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all facilities employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the data they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final metric we assessed in this category is the number of patients who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We discovered that 4.3 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home.