Bedford Care Center of Mendenhall

On top of performing well in its overall grade, this nursing home performed at an even higher level in the area of inspections. In fact, it received a nearly flawless inspection report this year. As a result, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A. Inspection scores are tied to several items located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that excel in this area have few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these facilities generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. While this place had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means the inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Remember that deficiency-free inspections are uncommon in the industry.

Among this facility's other accomplishments is its high-end long-term care score. It received one of our best scores in that category, with a grade of A-. Nursing homes that do well in this category tend to be well-staffed and provide extensive hands on care to patients. After considering the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we then analyzed the nursing home's vaccination records. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents for pneumonia. Vaccines are critical to keeping residents out of the hospital. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0.05 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

Adding to its profile, this facility also earned a grade of B+ for its nursing rating. This is a well above average score in this category. We assessed the qualifications of nurses at the nursing home, as well as the quantity of time the nurses were with patients, in calculating our grade in this area. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This place performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a facility has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can often be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

The next area we rated is short-term care. Unfortunately, we gave it an F for this category, which is a bottom of the barrel grade. We would not simply dismiss a nursing home as a result of a single poor score though. In computing our short-term care grades, we analyze the nursing home's levels of skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists speech therapists and other types of therapists. This rating is generally a meaningful measure of the nursing home's rehabilitation. In this nursing home's case, we found that it provided fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than the typical facility. The last metric we assessed in this area is the percentage of residents that ultimately were able to return home from the facility. This facility struggled quite a bit in this area as well, with just 3.3 percent of its patients returning home. Unfortunately, this was well below average.