Wingate at Haverhill

On top of receiving a strong overall rating, this facility fared even better in our inspections category which is associated with the nursing home's recent government inspections. We gave it an A- for that area, which is one of our highest grades. Our inspection grades account for several factors included in a nursing home's inspection reports. One key criteria we weigh heavily is the number and severity of deficiencies. Nursing homes with higher scores in this category tend to have few of these severe deficiencies. Fortunately, although this place had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you the inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. A couple minor deficiencies are not the end of the world.

This nursing home received an impressive short-term care score as well. We awarded it one of our higher grades in that area with a score of B+. In computing these short-term care grades, we look at the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, speech therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. Our purpose is to formulate a measure for sizing up the rehabilitation services of various facilities. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final measure we looked at in this category 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 patients returned home.

This nursing home also received a strong nursing score. In fact, we awarded it an above average grade of B in this area. Our nursing score analyzes the facility's nurse staffing levels. We look at both the levels of licensure of those nurses as well as the number of hours spent with patients. This nursing home provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also looked at some nursing quality-based metrics in determining our nursing grades. This nursing home performed very well in terms of minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

Switching gears to our final area, this nursing home was given a C in long-term care, which is a respectable score. In a long-term care setting, the facility's primary goal is to keep patients healthy and safe. This is different than skilled nursing or short-term care where the goal is to rehabilitate patients. Once we looked at the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we next considered the facility's vaccination records. This facility vaccinated 92.5 percent of its residents for pneumonia, which happens to be a few points less than we expected but still a decent figure. On a more positive note, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. It had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.