Alpha Home - A Waters Community

Even though this facility's overall score was as bad as it gets, it didn't perform as badly in the area of nursing. We awarded it a C for that area. Our nursing grade is based on the facility's level of nurse staffing. We factor in both the levels of skill of those nurses and the number of hours spent with patients. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This figure is significantly below average. Finally, we also assessed some nursing quality measures. Although this place got dinged a bit for its nursing hours per resident, it excelled in a few of these quality-based measures. With fewer than five percent of its patients sustaining pressure ulcers, it did very well in this subcategory. This is typically an indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as by having a protocol of moving patients even once per day.

Turning to the area of short-term care, this facility was awarded just a D in that area. As it turns out, this ended up being one of its better grades. In determining our short-term care ratings, we assess the facility's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, speech therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. Our objective is to formulate a measure for sizing up the rehabilitation services of different facilities. With its grade in this category, we weren't stunned to learn that this nursing home was well below average in terms of the quantity of physical therapy and registered nurse hours provided to its patients based on the figures we assessed. Frankly, this was about what we expected to find. The final datapoint we assessed in this category is the number of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We discovered that just 0 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home, which is well below average. The combination of these subpar statistics was damning for this nursing home's short-term care grade.

This nursing home received an F for its inspection score. This is a particularly important category. Scores in this range typically point to red flags on the nursing home's inspections. When a nursing home has this bad of an inspection rating, you should look for severe deficiencies on its inspection report. Severe deficiencies indicate a risk to resident safety. This facility was assessed 7 deficiencies on its inspection report. The only positive thing we found is that none of its deficiencies were in the categories that indicate they created a risk to resident safety or health. Finally, CMS flagged this nursing home for possible abuse or neglect. This is not what you want to see. We advise you to direct your search elsewhere.

The next area we analyzed was long-term care. This nursing home was given a rock bottom grade of F in that area. Facilities that receive this type of grade in long-term care likely don't provide the type of consistent around the clock care that some other facilities provide. After assessing the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination record. We were a bit worried that this nursing home vaccinated 63.841805 percent of its residents for pneumonia, which happens to be several points below what we were hoping for. Surprisingly, this nursing home actually fared well at keeping its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days. This was its best feature in this category.