Diversicare of Boaz

To go along with a favorable overall grade, we gave this facility an A+ for our inspection category. Inspection ratings are based on many datapoints located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that score well in this area typically have few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these places generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. While this facility had a few deficiencies on its report, none were severe based on CMS' deficiency scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This facility also was given a very strong long-term care score. This actually turned out to be this facility's second strongest category score. In that area, we awarded this facility a score of A. When facilities receive a score in this range in this category it typically means it has plenty of staff and is a quality place to live on a permanent basis. After considering the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we next considered the facility's vaccination records. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents against pneumonia. Vaccines are critical to keeping residents out of the hospital. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

Among its many impressive grades, this facility received an excellent nursing grade. In fact, we gave it a grade of A in that category. The nursing rating assesses many factors, most of which are associated with quantities of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics and this nursing home excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any nursing home the nation in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can typically be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as by having a policy of turning patients more often.

The final category we scored is short-term care, where this facility was given an A-. This completed a first-rate report card. Very few facilities received an A- or better in all four categories. In determining our short-term care scores, we analyze a facility's levels of highly skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists respiratory therapists and other types of therapists. This score is generally a reliable assessment of the facility's ability to rehabilitate patients. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. However, according to the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last item we looked at in this area is the number of patients who were able to leave the nursing home and return home. We found that 5.7 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home.