A.O. Fox Hospital

One of the reasons this turned out to be a strong facility is that it earned a very impressive inspection grade. Inspections is its best category grade. In that area, we gave it an A. Perhaps the most critical factor we look at in computing our inspection ratings is deficiencies. Deficiencies are found on a nursing home's inspection reports. Places with higher grades in this area most likely avoided the most severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. Fortunately, although this facility had a few minor dings on its report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones found in categories G through L. This means the government inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This facility also received a favorable long-term care grade. Indeed, we awarded it an above average grade of B+ in this category. Facilities that do well in this category typically are well-staffed and provide extensive hands on care to patients. Once we finished looking at the amount of nursing care, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination statistics. This nursing home vaccinated 97.69453 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is what we like to see. Pneumonia can be a deadly health condition for nursing home patients so we strongly prefer when a nursing home does not roll the dice on this issue. Lastly, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. It had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

Another one of this facility's impressive category grades came in the area of nursing care. We awarded them one of our better scores in that area, with a grade of B. Our nursing score is based on a handful of components, many of which are associated with quantities of nurse staffing. This particular nursing home provided 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This place performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a nursing home has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can generally be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

The next category we looked at is short-term care. In that area, we gave this facility a strong grade of B. Short-term care ratings are important for prospective residents looking for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually utilizes higher levels of highly-skilled nursing. This includes a broad scope of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last metric we assessed in this category is the number of residents that ultimately returned home from the facility. We found that 5.1 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.