Avenue at Wooster

While this nursing home earned a decent overall grade, its inspections score is notably better than its overall score. Due to a strong government inspection report this year, it earned one of our better scores in that area with a grade of B+. Our inspection grades account for several factors included in a facility's inspection reports. One key criteria we consider is the number and severity of deficiencies. Nursing homes with better scores in this category generally have very few of these severe deficiencies. Although this nursing home had some deficiencies on its government inspection report, none of them were severe based on CMS' scale. A couple of minor deficiencies should not stop you from considering a nursing home.

This nursing home's short-term care score is one of its respectable grades. The facility received a grade of B- in this area. In computing our short-term care grades, we size up a nursing home's levels of highly skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists respiratory therapists and other licensed professionals. This grade is considered to be a solid assessment of the facility's ability to rehabilitate patients. We were surprised to find that this place was below average in the two key staffing areas we looked at. The facility provided fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than most other nursing homes. It is important to determine whether this is adversely impacting the quality of care. Lastly, we looked at the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 5.7 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their patients are able to return home so this figure is below average.

We also gave this nursing home a decent score in the category of nursing care, with a grade of B-. When computing a facility's nursing grade, we weigh the number of hours nurses are caring for residents as well as the level of skill of those nurses. This nursing home averages just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low figure. Lastly, we also assessed several nursing quality measures. Although this nursing home got docked a bit for nursing hours per resident, it excelled in a few of these quality measures. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it did remarkably well in this subcategory. This can be an indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as by having a system of turning a resident at least once a day.

The next area we looked at is long-term care, which was a weak link for this nursing home. We gave this nursing home a grade of D in our long-term care category. If you are looking for anything other than short-term rehabilitation, you should take a close look at each facility's long-term care scores. Once we assessed the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we turned to the nursing home's vaccination records. This nursing home vaccinated 99.6063 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is more than the majority of nursing homes. Surprisingly, this facility also keeps its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days. Sadly, some of its other scores in this category weren't as favorable as these.