Briarcliff Health Care Center

With an address in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Briarcliff Health Care Center is one of just two available facilities in this area. We gave this facility an overall grade of B-. A grade in this range requires some respectable scores. Based on our assessment, this nursing home is a solid choice for most people. This nursing home is better in some categories than others, but it didn't have any weak links in any of the major categories discussed below. More information about these categories can be found below.

While this nursing home's overall grade was not bad, it really excelled in the area of inspections. In fact, we awarded it a grade of A+ for that category, which is one of our best scores. Perhaps the most important factor we consider in calculating our inspection grades is deficiencies. Deficiencies are found on a nursing home's inspection reports. Places with better scores in this area most likely avoided the most severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. Fortunately, although this place had some minor dings on its report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are labeled as categories G through L. This tells you the inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Keep in mind that deficiency-free inspections are rare in the industry.

One of the other reasons we rated this nursing home so highly is that it received a very impressive nursing grade. This turned out to be its second best category grade. In that category, we awarded this facility an B. Nursing grades are based in large part on nurse staffing levels. This nursing home averages 3.6 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at some quality-based measures in this category. This place fared well in some of the quality measures we assessed. For example, in terms of the number of its patients suffering from pressure ulcers, this place performed better than the national average. This is generally an indicator that a facility has reliable quality controls in place. Pressure ulcers can often be prevented with better nursing care.

The third most favorable area we awarded this facility in any area came in the category of short-term care, where we awarded it a grade of C. Short-term care ratings are important for people looking for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically utilizes additional skilled nursing services. This means a broad range of services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last metric we considered in this area is the percentage of residents who were able to return home from the facility. It performed respectably with 46.7 percent of its patients returning home.

The final area we rated was long-term care. In this category, we awarded this nursing home a grade of C. Long-term care ratings are based in part on the facility's amount of care. This means a vast range of personal care services, ranging from assistance with activities of daily living to routine medical services. In addition to looking at the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility vaccinated 98.069496 percent of its residents. This nursing home keeps its patients out of the hospital. It had only 0.85 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.