Atmore Nursing Center

We also wanted to point out the fact that this nursing home has received near flawless health inspections in recent years. We awarded them an A+ in this category. Inspection ratings account for several factors included in a nursing home's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we weigh heavily is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with better scores in this area typically have very few of these severe deficiencies. This facility received 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be severe deficiencies. This indicates that the inspectors did not consider any of these deficiencies to be an immediate risk to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Among its many impressive grades, this facility received an excellent nursing grade. In fact, we gave it a grade of A- in that category. When computing our nursing ratings, we factor in both staffing levels and the skill levels of the nurses. This facility provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This nursing home performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a place has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can frequently be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

Moving on our third category, we awarded this facility a score of A- for its long-term care score. This is a very impressive rating. When facilities receive this kind of score in long-term care it is typically a good sign for resident care and indicates that the nursing home is well-staffed with nurses aids. Once we assessed the volume of care provided by nurses, we turned to the nursing home's vaccination statistics. This nursing home vaccinated 99.29078 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia sadly is often a deadly health condition for nursing home residents so we like it when a facility does not leave this to chance. Finally, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. It had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

The final area we analyzed was short-term care. We awarded this nursing home a solid grade in this area, with a grade of B-. While this is not as dominant as many of this nursing home's other scores, it is nevertheless a middle of the pack score. In determining our short-term care scores, we scrutinize the facility's levels of highly skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists occupational therapists and other licensed professionals. This category is often a reliable assessment of a facility's rehabilitation services. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the information they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last datapoint we considered in this area is the number of patients who eventually returned home from the nursing home. We found that just 4.8 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home. This figure was below the national average.