Avoca Specialty Care

While we were not high on this nursing home overall, we awarded it a B for our inspections rating. This grade is much better than the place's overall grade. Our inspection grades account for several factors found on a facility's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we weigh heavily is the number and severity of deficiencies. You should avoid nursing homes with a list of deficiencies flagged. This facility received 5 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered severe. This indicates that CMS did not consider any of the deficiencies to cause an immediate risk to patient health or safety. A couple minor deficiencies aren't the end of the world.

One of the other reasons we rated this nursing home so highly is that it earned a very impressive nursing grade. In that area, we gave this facility an B-. Nursing grades are based largely on levels of nurse staffing. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident on a daily basis. This figure is far below the national average. Lastly, we also looked at some nursing quality measures. Although this facility got dinged a bit for its nursing hours per resident, it actually excelled in some of these quality measures. With less than five percent of its residents suffering from pressure ulcers, it did remarkably well in this metric. This is typically a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by having a policy of moving patients more frequently.

This facility's next best category was its short-term care grade, where it received a B-. In our short-term care grade, we try to craft a meaningful barometer for rehabilitation services. In doing so, we analyze the facility's levels of skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as respiratory therapy. Unfortunately, we found that this nursing home provided fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than most other facilities. The final measure we looked at in this area is the percentage of patients that were able to return home from the facility. We found that just 4.8 percent of this facility's residents returned home.

The next area we graded was long-term care, in which this facility received a very poor score here also. It received an F for this area, which is definitely very concerning. Long-term care ratings of this caliber generally are a bad sign for the quantity and quality of care provided by nurses and aids. One of the statistics we considered in addition to nurse's aid hours was vaccinations. Candidly, we were a bit alarmed this facility provided the pneumonia vaccine to a relatively low 84.42623 percent of its patients. Surprisingly, this place was actually able to limit hospitalizations. With just 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this facility had fewer hospitalizations than most nursing homes. This was its best feature in this category.