Altercare Somerset
411 South Columbus Street, Somerset OH 43783 · (740) 743-2924 · 81.87% estimated occupancy 1Updated: Aug 1, 2020 · By Sara Levinsohn
Altercare Somerset is a facility located in Somerset, Ohio, a city with a population of 4,704 people. With an overall rating of C, this appears to be a decent nursing home. This facility has some things working in its favor. One of the better aspects of this nursing home's report card is its impressive inspection score, which we will address in the next paragraph.
Additional Details:
Accepts Medicare 1 :
Accepts Medicaid 1 : 80 Beds
CCRC :
For profit - Corporation
Resident Council:
Family Council:
Medical Staff Hours Per Patient (2019)
Facility Inspections
This facility earned a solid overall grade as described above, but we really wanted to point out its nearly flawless health inspections in recent years. We gave them an A- in this category. Arguably the most critical factor we look at in determining our inspection ratings is deficiencies. These deficiencies can be found on a nursing home's inspection reports. Places with higher scores in this category most likely avoided the most severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. Although this facility had a few deficiencies on its government inspection report, none were major deficiencies based on CMS' scale. A couple of minor deficiencies shouldn't stop you from considering a nursing home.
Short-term Care Quality
We also awarded this facility a favorable score in short-term care. This facility received a B in this area, which turns out to be one of our better scores. Short-term care grades are generally used to gauge a nursing home's performance with rehabilitation. In order to have highly rated rehabilitation services, nursing homes generally need to provide better levels of highly skilled nursing services. These types of services include registered nurses, physical therapists, speech therapists and other highly skilled individuals. Fortunately, this nursing home offers both physical therapists and registered nurses. Not all facilities offer both. The final measure we assessed in this area is the number of patients that returned home from the nursing home. This proved to be more of a strength for this facility. This place fared as well as just about any nursing home in Ohio with 62.5 percent of its residents returning home. Unfortunately, at most nursing homes, fewer than half of their short-term patients are able to return home.
Long-term Care Quality
The third area we graded was long-term care. In that area, we gave this facility a solid grade of B-. For prospective patients looking for a permanent residence as opposed to rehabilitation, long-term care grades are very important. Once we assessed the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then analyzed the nursing home's vaccination statistics. We were optimistic to discover that this facility vaccinated 99.49749 percent of its residents for pneumonia. The last datapoint we assessed is its hospitalization rate. Here we found that this facility had 3.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days. Although this figure is quite a bit higher than the national average, this statistic may be skewed for some nursing homes due to the medical complexity of residents.
Nurse Quality
The last category we rated was nursing. We gave it an F in this category, which is a poor score. This is obviously a significant disappointment. The nursing grade weighs many subcategories, most of which are tied to nursing hours. This place provided just 3 hours of nursing care per patient each day. This is not a very impressive figure. This place also had terrible scores in some of the quality-based metrics to pair with its low nursing hour totals. We looked at the percentage of residents suffering pressure ulcers and we were quite disappointed. This facility was at roughly 150 percent of the national average in this statistic. This is a bad sign in light of the fact that so many pressure ulcers could be avoided with better nursing care. This metric helped pull down this nursing home's nursing score quite a bit.
Overall Rating Over Time
Compared to national and state averages across all facilities.
Altercare Somerset Quality Metrics
Minimizes Pressure Ulcers
This is the percentage of residents who have had a pressure ulcer. Pressure ulcers, which are also known as bed sores, are routinely the result of patients not being moved frequently enough. Better nursing protocols can limit the number of pressure ulcers sustained by residents in a nursing home.
Percent of Patients with Pressure Ulcers
Lower is Better
Minimizes Serious Falls
This datapoint is an indication of the percentage of long-term stay residents which have sustained falls which resulted in severe injury. This is one of the statistics we use in calculating nursing ratings.
Percent of Patients with Serious Falls
Lower is Better
Minimizes Urinary Tract Infections
This tells you the percentage of residents that have had a urinary tract infection. These infections are associated with poor hygiene.
Percent of Patients with UTIs
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Psychotic Medication
This indicates the percent of residents who were prescribed antipsychotic medications. Antipsychotic drugs are prescribed to patients for a variety of conditions, including dementia. Sadly, in some situations, increased usage of these drugs may indicate that a nursing home is using these drugs to subdue residents.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Anxiety Medication
This indicates the percent of patients who were prescribed antianxiety drugs. Antianxiety drugs are prescribed to residents experiencing anxiety or depression.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Managing Depression Among Residents
This is a measure of the percent of long-term residents who are demonstrating depressive symptoms.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriate Vaccine Usage
This is a measure of the percent of long-term stay residents who have received the flu and pneumonia vaccines. Respiratory viruses can be fatal for seniors, making these types of vaccines critical to patient care.
Percent of Patients
Higher is Better
Residents Maintain Autonomy
This metric is a measure of the percentage of long-term residents who required more assistance with activities of daily living over time. ADL's include activities such as dressing and taking a bath. Many would argue this is a measure of a patient's well-being.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Ability to Keep Residents Mobile
This metric is a measure of the percent of long-term residents that remained mobile levels.
Percentage of Residents
Higher is Better
Hospitalizations
This is the number of times residents are hospitalized per thousand days of care. There is usually a correlation between keeping patients out of the hospital and the overall quality of care.
Hospitalizations per 1,000 resident days
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Rehospitalizations
This metric tracks the number of times residents are rehospitalized per thousand days of short-term care.
Percentage of Residents Rehospitalized
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: ER Visits
This datapoint measures the number of emergency room visits per thousand days of short-term care. Staying out of the emergency room is one way to measure the well-being of patients during rehabilitation.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Facilitates Functional Improvement
Measures the percentage of short-term residents that saw functional improvements, such as enhanced ability to perform activities of daily living. Many would argue that this is a reliable measure of a facility's rehabilitation services.
Percentage of Resident
Higher is Better