Diversicare of Meridian

In addition to receiving a strong overall grade, this nursing home performed even better in our inspections category which is associated with the facility's recent government inspections. In fact, we gave it an A+ for this area, which is one of our highest grades. Inspection scores weigh a host of factors included in a facility's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we weigh heavily is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with higher grades in this category usually have very few of these severe deficiencies. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

We also awarded this nursing home a score of A- for our long-term care grade. Long-term care grades of this caliber generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine healthcare services. After we finished assessing the amount of care provided by nurses, we next considered the facility's vaccination data. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its residents for pneumonia, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia is often a dangerous health condition for nursing home patients so we strongly prefer when a nursing home doesn't leave this to chance. 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 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

This facility's next best category was its nursing grade, where it received a grade of B-. While this didn't quite match its scores in some of the categories discussed above, this is still a decent score. Our nursing score includes many factors, however, the main consideration is the quantity of nurse hours per patient per week. This facility provided just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a relatively low total compared to most other facilities. Finally, nursing scores also factor in quality-based assessments, such as preventing major falls. Despite not having the most impressive total nursing hours per resident, this facility actually performed admirably in the metric of preventing major falls. This is usually a reliable indicator that a facility has sufficient quality controls in place. Some falls could be avoided if a nursing home supplies enough nurses aids to assist its patients.

The final area we rated is short-term care. This nursing home was awarded a C in this area. Short-term care scores are based in part on the facility's quantity of skilled highly skilled professionals. This includes a wide spectrum of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, not to mention other forms of therapy. Unfortunately, we weren't able to locate information about this nursing home's registered nurse or physical therapy staffing. The final measure we considered in this area is the percentage of residents who returned home from the facility. We found that just 4.1 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home. Unfortunately, this was below the national average.