Coast Fork Nursing Center

Although we did not rate this nursing home well overall, we would like to point out its decent inspections in recent years. We awarded it a somewhat respectable score of B- in this area. Inspection grades are tied to pieces of information located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Deficiencies are a key thing to look for on these inspections. Severe deficiencies indicate a threat to patient safety. Fortunately, although this facility had some minor dings on its inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you CMS did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, CMS cited this nursing home for possible abuse or neglect. Hopefully, its performance improves in the future, but until then we simply can't recommend this facility.

We awarded this facility a respectable grade in the area of nursing as well, with a grade of B-. Our nursing rating is mostly associated with a facility's level of nurse staffing. This place averages 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident daily, which is well below average. Finally, nursing ratings also factor in quality-based assessments, such as preventing major falls. Despite not having the highest total nursing hours per resident, this place performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is generally a good indicator that a facility has sufficient quality controls in place. Some falls could be avoided if a facility provides enough nurses aids to assist its residents.

The third category we assessed was short-term care. In that category, we gave this facility a grade of B-. Our short-term care scores are based in part on a nursing home's quantity of skilled skilled healthcare professionals. This means a broad scope of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, not to mention other forms of therapy. We were surprised to find that this facility was below average in the two key staffing areas we looked at. In fact, it supplied fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other nursing homes. The last measure we assessed in this area is the number of residents that eventually returned home from the facility. We found that just 6.3 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

The next category we looked at is long-term care. This nursing home was given a grade of B- in the category. Long-term care grades assess a facility's assistance with daily living rather than the skilled nursing or healthcare services that are critical to a rehabilitation facility. On top of assessing the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home gave the vaccine to 97.91667 percent of its residents, which is better than most nursing homes. This facility also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.