Autumn Heights Health Care Center

While we were not high on this facility overall, we awarded it a B- for our inspections rating. This score is better than the facility's overall score. We would argue that one of the most critical factors in assessing an inspection report is deficiencies. We especially look at the severity of the deficiencies. It does not appear that we were able to find deficiency counts for this nursing home. Lastly, this facility was flagged by CMS for possible abuse or neglect. We prefer to avoid facilities with this designation. Please do your best to find an alternative nursing home.

We awarded this facility a respectable grade in the area of nursing as well, with a grade of B-. Our nursing rating weighs a variety of factors. The most heavily weighted one is the quantity of hours nurses spend with residents. This nursing home averages just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low figure. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this place actually excelled in some of the quality-based metrics we assessed. In fact, it performed well in terms of minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. Many consider these areas to be reliable indicators of the quality of nursing care. In some cases, the quality of nursing care is as important as the quantity of hours of care provided.

This facility's next best area turned out to be its short-term care grade, where it received a grade of B-. With our short-term care score, we strive to forge a valuable measure for rehabilitation services. In doing so, we assess a facility's scope of skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as respiratory therapy. Unfortunately, we found that this facility provided fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other nursing homes. The key is determining what bearing this had on the quality of care. The final statistic we looked at in this area is the percentage of residents who eventually returned home from the facility. We found that just 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home. This figure was below the national average.

The next area we looked at is long-term care. We awarded it a grade of B- in that category. This is a fair grade in this category. In computing these long-term care grades, we quantify the facility's personal care services. In addition to assessing the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 91.18644 percent of its residents, which is somewhat below what we expected. Nevertheless, this nursing home excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.