Avon Place

While this facility's overall grade was decent, it really excelled in the category of inspections. In fact, we awarded it a grade of A for that category, which is one of our best scores. These inspection grades take several factors into consideration, including deficiencies, substantiated complaints and federal fines. You can find more information about each of these items by reviewing copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. While this place had some minor dings on its inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you CMS did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. We should point out that deficiency-free inspections are rare in this industry.

This nursing home also was given a positive grade in our short-term care category. We gave this facility a better than average grade of B in that category. In determining our short-term care ratings, we look at a nursing home's levels of skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists speech therapists and other licensed professionals. This category is generally a fair measure of the facility's rehabilitation. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final statistic we assessed in this area is the percentage of residents who ultimately returned home from the facility. We found that 5.8 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

The next highest grade we gave this nursing home in any area came in the category of nursing, where we gave it a grade of B-. Nursing grades are mostly tied to the nursing home's level 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, our nursing scores also consider quality-based assessments, such as preventing major falls. Despite not having the highest total nursing hours per resident, this place actually performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is generally a good indicator that a nursing home has sufficient quality controls in place. Some falls could be avoided if a facility supplies enough nurses to assist its patients.

The last area we assessed is long-term care, was this facility's weakest category. We awarded this nursing home a grade of D in this area. This really is one of just a few dings in an otherwise impressive report card. For prospective patients seeking a permanent place to live rather than skilled nursing, long-term care is a very important category. After assessing the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination record. We were pleased to discover that this facility vaccinated 95.416664 percent of its patients for pneumonia. Surprisingly, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. With only 0.02 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this nursing home has less hospitalizations than many nursing homes. Unfortunately, a few of its other scores in this category were not as favorable as these.