Briarfield at Ashley Circle

The main reason this turned out to be a decent nursing home is that it received an excellent inspection grade. In fact, its inspection grade was far superior to its overall grade. In our inspections category, we gave this facility an A. These inspection grades weigh several factors, including deficiencies and federal fines. You can learn more about each of these issues by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. While this nursing home had some minor dings on its report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you that CMS did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. A couple of minor deficiencies shouldn't lead you to cross a nursing home off your list.

This nursing home's next best category is short-term care. In that area, we gave this facility a C. Our short-term care ratings are based on a nursing home's quantity of skilled skilled healthcare professionals. This includes a vast range of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, not to mention other forms of therapy. Unfortunately, this place was below average in terms of its level of physical therapy and registered nurse hours provided to its residents based on the metrics we assessed. Lastly, we considered the number of residents who were able to return home from this facility. We found that 4.9 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home. This figure was actually well below average.

Another strength of this nursing home is its favorable grade in nursing. We gave them one of our better scores in that area, with an impressive grade of D. Our nursing score looks at the facility's level of nurse staffing. We look at both the levels of training of those nurses and the quantity of hours spent with patients. This facility averaged a meager 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is well below average. Lastly, we also looked at some nursing quality measures in calculating our nursing ratings. This nursing home fared well when it comes to avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these datapoints to be reliable indicators of the quality of nursing care.

Moving on to the final area, we awarded this facility a grade of D for long-term care. This is the facility's weakest category grade. For prospective patients seeking a permanent place to live as opposed to rehabilitation, long-term care grades are very important. On top of assessing the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients, which is more than most nursing homes. To our surprise, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. With just 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this facility had less hospitalizations than the majority of nursing homes. Unfortunately, a few of its other scores in the category weren't as favorable as these.