AHC Covington Care

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a great nursing home is it received an A+ inspection grade. This is as good as it gets in this area. Arguably the most critical factor we look at in determining our inspection ratings is deficiencies. Deficiencies are found on a facility's inspection reports. Facilities with better grades in this area most likely dodged the most severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. Fortunately, although this place had a few minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G through L. This tells you the inspectors didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This facility also excelled in the area of nursing, where it received a grade of A. Few nursing homes performed better in this area. Our nursing grade is primarily based on the nursing home's nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at some nursing quality-based metrics in determining our nursing grades. This place performed very well when it comes to minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

This nursing home also performed well in the category of long-term care, where it received a grade of A. Not many nursing homes fared better in this category. When nursing homes receive a grade in this range in long-term care it generally means it's well-staffed and is an overall good place to live on a permanent basis. In addition to considering the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility provided the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is far higher than the majority of nursing homes. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

The next category we rated is short-term care, in which this nursing home was given a B. Believe it or not, this proved to be this nursing home's least impressive category. A nursing home is doing something right when it's lowest grade still rates higher than most other nursing homes. In the area of short-term care, we seek to assess indicators of a nursing home's rehabilitation services. We assess the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including the ones performed by registered nurses and physical, occupational and other therapists. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final measure we considered in this area is the percentage of patients that ultimately were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that 5.1 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.