Avalon Village

The main reason this ended up being a decent nursing home is that it earned an excellent inspection score. In fact, its inspection score was far superior to its overall score. In our inspections category, we gave this facility an A+. Perhaps the most critical factor we look at in determining our inspection scores is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes with higher scores in this category most likely dodged the most severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. Although this nursing home had some deficiencies on its government inspection report, none were serious based on CMS' deficiency scale. A few relatively minor dings are not the end of the world.

One of the other reasons we graded this facility so highly is that it earned a very impressive nursing score. In that area, we awarded this facility an B-. Our nursing category is based on several subcategories, many of which are based on 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. Lastly, despite not having the highest total nursing hours, this nursing home performed admirably in the metric of preventing major falls. This is often a good indicator that a facility has sufficient quality controls in place.

We also gave this facility a middle of the road grade in the category of long-term care, where it received a C. In determining our long-term care ratings, we analyze the personal care offered to a facility's residents. After assessing the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we turned to the facility's vaccination statistics. We were pleased to learn that this facility vaccinated 97.45223 percent of its patients against pneumonia. This facility was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

Switching gears to the fourth area, we awarded this facility a grade of D for our short-term care category. This is the facility's least impressive category rating. Naturally, this score pulled down the nursing home's overall grade a bit. In forming these short-term care grades, we look at the facility's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. Our goal is to formulate a measure for comparing the rehabilitation services of various facilities. It appears that this facility was subpar in several staffing metrics we focus on. In fact, it provided fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per patient than most other nursing homes. Lastly, we considered the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. This definitely was not a strength for this facility. We found that just 3.5 percent of this facility's patients returned home. At most nursing homes, around half of their patients are able to return home so this is well below average.