Autumn Care of Norfolk

Although we didn't grade this facility favorably overall, we did give it an excellent grade in the area of inspections, where it earned a grade of A-. Arguably the most significant factor we look at in calculating our inspection ratings is deficiencies. These deficiencies can be found on a facility's recent inspection reports. It is typically best to avoid facilities that have too many severe deficiencies. While this facility had a few minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones found in categories G through L. This means that CMS did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. A few minor deficiencies aren't the end of the world.

One of the other reasons we rated this facility so highly is that it earned a very impressive nursing score. In fact, nursing turned out to be its second best category grade. In that category, we gave this nursing home a grade of C. The nursing category consists of several factors, many of which are associated with levels of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a much lower figure than we are used to seeing. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this nursing home excelled in some of the quality-based metrics we assessed. In fact, it performed well in the area of minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls.

The third highest category we awarded this facility in any area came in the area of long-term care, where we gave it a C. For long-term care residents, the nursing home's primary objective is to keep patients as healthy and safe as possible. This is different than skilled nursing or short-term care where the goal is to rehabilitate residents. On top of considering the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 79.83425 percent of its residents. This is significantly below what we expected. On a more positive note, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

Switching gears to the last area, we gave this facility a grade of D for our short-term care category. This is the facility's worst category score. Short-term care grades are important for residents requiring rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically utilizes higher levels of skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes a wide range of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. With a score of this caliber for this area, we were not surprised to find that this facility was below average in the two key staffing figures we focus on. It provided far fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per patient than most other nursing homes. The last measure we considered in this category is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We discovered that just 5 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home, which is well below average. The combination of these poor statistics was damning for this facility's short-term care score.