Ardmore Health and Rehabilitation Center

Although we were not complementary of this facility's overall performance, it did receive an impressive inspection report this year with few dings from the applicable government inspectors. As a result, it received one of our better grades in that area with a B+. Inspection scores account for several factors included in a facility's inspection report. One key criteria we rely on is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. You generally want to avoid places with a bunch of severe deficiencies flagged. While this facility had a few minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those found in categories G through L. This means CMS didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. A few minor deficiencies are not necessarily the end of the world.

Another one of this facility's more favorable category grades was in the area of long-term care. In that area, we gave this facility a grade of B. It actually fared better than most nursing homes in this category. Nursing homes that do well in long-term care tend to be well-staffed and provide extensive hands on care to residents. In addition to assessing the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is very impressive. Pneumonia tragically can be a life or death condition for nursing home residents so we strongly prefer when a facility doesn't take any chances. Finally, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. It had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

The third area we assessed is short-term care, where this nursing home was given an F. In forming our short-term care ratings, we assess the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. Our objective is to formulate a barometer for sizing up the rehabilitation services of nursing homes. Based on its score in this area, we weren't stunned to discover that this nursing home is well below average in terms of the quantity of registered nurse and physical therapy hours offered to its patients based on the data we looked at. Frankly, this was about what we expected to find. Finally, we considered the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that just 4.7 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

The next area we assessed was nursing. This nursing home received a bottom of the barrel grade of F in this area. Nursing ratings are largely tied to a facility's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home averaged only 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is not a very impressive figure. In addition to receiving below average scores for nursing hours, this nursing home was less impressive in some of the quality-based measures we looked at in determining our nursing ratings. We looked at the percent of patients sustaining pressure ulcers and found that this place was at approximately 150 percent of the national average in this statistic. This is likely a bad sign when you consider that many bed sores are preventable with better nursing care. Unfortunately, this statistic pulled down this facility's nursing score significantly.