Altercare Somerset

Although we were not high on this facility overall, we awarded it a B- for our inspections rating. This grade is better than the facility's overall score. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in determining our inspection grades. One critical factor is deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of the deficiencies is arguably more important than the number of deficiencies, as some of these can be relatively minor. This nursing home was assessed 6 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe deficiencies. This tells you that the inspectors didn't deem any of these deficiencies to be an imminent risk to resident health or safety. Lastly, this nursing home was cited by CMS for possible abuse or neglect. This is generally a really bad sign. We would never recommend this facility.

We awarded this facility a respectable grade in the area of nursing as well, with a grade of C. Our nursing rating is largely based on a nursing home's nurse staffing. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a relatively low total compared to most other facilities. Lastly, we also assessed some nursing quality-based metrics. While this nursing home got docked a bit for its nursing hours, it excelled in some of these quality-based metrics. With less than five percent of its patients sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed well in this metric. This is typically an indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by employing a policy of moving residents even once per day.

This nursing home's third best area turned out to be short-term care. In that category, we awarded this facility a grade of C. Our short-term care ratings are believed to be most important for folks requiring rehabilitation services. Rehabilitation usually requires more skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing means not just nursing services, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other forms of therapy. Unfortunately, this facility was below average in terms of its quantity of registered nurse and physical therapy hours provided to its residents based on the measures we assessed. The final datapoint we looked at in this category is the number of patients who who were able to eventually return home from the nursing home. We found that just 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home.

The last area we graded was long-term care. We gave it a C in this area. This is not a bad grade in this area. Our long-term care grade focuses on a facility's assistance with daily living instead of the highly skilled therapy and medical services that are critical to a skilled nursing facility. After assessing the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we then looked at the facility's vaccination data. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents against pneumonia, which is more than the majority of nursing homes. Lastly, this nursing home was also able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.