Overall sentiment across reviews for Highland House Nursing & Rehabilitation Center is highly mixed and polarized. Many reviewers praise individual caregivers, particularly CNAs, therapists, and a few licensed staff and administrators, describing compassionate bedside care, effective rehabilitation, and successful recoveries. At the same time, a substantial number of reviews describe severe shortcomings in basic care, safety, cleanliness, and management. The net picture is one of pockets of good clinical skill and dedication coexisting with systemic problems that significantly affect resident safety, dignity, and overall quality of life.
Care quality and clinical outcomes vary widely. Several reviewers report excellent, professional care from therapists and nursing staff, with measurable improvements in mobility and successful rehab after surgeries. These accounts highlight attentive CNAs, skilled therapists, and a supportive house doctor or administrators who advocate for residents. Conversely, an equally large group of reviewers recounts neglectful experiences: missed or late medications (including delayed pain relief), failure to follow doctors' orders, minimal or inconsistent therapy, and rough handling of patients. Serious clinical concerns include weight loss from inadequate feeding or hydration, missed nebulizer or respiratory treatments, and accounts of patients being left soiled or unattended. Medication errors and failure to provide timely pain or essential medications are recurring complaints.
Safety, hygiene, and facility conditions emerge as dominant negative themes. Multiple reviewers describe pervasive odors of urine and feces, soiled linens, flies, and mold or septic smells in rooms and bathrooms. Some rooms are praised for attractive decor, resident artwork, and holiday decorations, but many others are described as run-down, lacking basic amenities such as functioning air conditioning, bed rails, or timely housekeeping. Safety lapses are repeatedly reported: bed alarms not used or not provided, a syringe left by a previous patient, high fall risk and documented falls that families say were hidden, and residents left on toilets or in soiled bedding. Theft of personal items, clothing, food, and money is alleged in several reviews, and some families report items missing after a resident's death. Collectively, these accounts indicate inconsistent adherence to basic safety and infection-control standards.
Staffing, management, and communication are central factors in the divergent experiences. A frequent explanation for both positive and negative reports is staffing levels: when staff are present, responsive, and empathetic, families report excellent care; when the facility is short-staffed, care quality deteriorates. Many reviewers describe staff who are overworked yet doing their best, while others describe cold, rude, or dismissive personnel and unresponsive administrators. Reports of poor follow-through by management, lack of accountability, punitive responses to complaints (including threat of discharge), and unreturned calls are common. Communication failures also extend to appointment coordination and transportation, with reports of canceled appointments due to fasting or transportation not being arranged.
Dining and activity offerings are similarly mixed. The facility is noted for an active activities program, arts and crafts, balloon volleyball, a beauty salon, and church meetings—features that contribute positively to residents' social life. Food quality receives mixed reactions: some reviewers praise plentiful portions and good meals, while many others describe meals as poor, cold, unbalanced, or unacceptable. Housekeeping and laundry are hit-or-miss in reviewers' experiences, contributing to the strong divide in perceived cleanliness and resident dignity.
A recurring pattern is inconsistency across shifts, wings, and individual staff members. The same facility receives glowing praise from some families and severe condemnation from others, often tied to specific staff or timeframes. This indicates variability in staffing competency, supervision, and enforcement of policies. Notable severe issues—such as alleged abuse, theft, failure to provide end-of-life hospice care, and concealment of incidents—are raised by multiple reviewers and warrant particular attention.
In summary, Highland House appears to have committed, skilled individuals and functional rehabilitation programs that produce strong outcomes for some residents. However, systemic problems—chronic understaffing, poor communication from administration, inconsistent hygiene and maintenance, safety lapses, medication and therapy gaps, and reports of theft and neglect—are frequent and serious. These issues create a substantial risk that a resident's experience will depend heavily on timing, unit, and specific caregivers on duty. Prospective residents and families should weigh the potential for excellent individualized care against documented safety and quality control concerns, and should seek detailed, up-to-date information about staffing, supervision, incident reporting, infection-control practices, bed-alarm policies, and how the facility addresses lost or stolen items before making placement decisions.
