Autumn Ridge at North Oaks

On top of faring well overall, this nursing home earned an excellent short-term care score. We gave it an A in that category. In our short-term care category, we seek to create a fair barometer for rehabilitation. In this process, we analyze a nursing home's scope of skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as speech therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. However, based on the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we looked at the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home.

This nursing home also received a very impressive nursing grade. In fact, this turned out to be its second best category grade. In that area, we awarded this facility a grade of A. Nursing ratings are mostly based on the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This facility 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 frequently be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

Another impressive feature of this facility is its inspection grade. In that area, we awarded this facility a grade of A-. Perhaps the most significant factor we look at in determining our inspection ratings is deficiencies. These deficiencies can be found on a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes with higher scores in this area typically avoided the most severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

In the final category, this facility also was given an impressive long-term care score, with an A-. This wrapped up a rare straight A report card. If you are seeking anything other than short-term rehabilitation, you should take a close look at each facility's long-term care ratings. In addition to considering the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 66.666664 percent of its patients. This is a bit less than we were hoping for but still a respectable percentage. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.