Diversicare of Montgomery

We want to draw your attention to the fact that this facility really outperformed its overall score in the area of inspections. In fact, it received an excellent inspection report this year. As a result, we gave it one of our best scores in this category with a grade of A. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in computing our inspection scores. One of those factors is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of deficiencies is usually more important than the number of deficiencies, as some can be relatively insignificant. While this facility had a few minor dings on its report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are labeled as categories G through L. This tells you the government inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. A couple relatively minor deficiencies are not the end of the world.

One of the other reasons we graded this nursing home so highly is that it received a very impressive nursing grade. This turned out to be its second best category grade. In that category, we awarded this nursing home an B-. We weighed the qualifications of nurses employed by the facility, in addition to the number of hours the nurses spent with patients, in calculating our grade in this area. This facility provides only 0.3 hours of nursing care per patient on a daily basis. This is a somewhat discouraging figure as it is well below the national average. Finally, while this place got docked a bit for nursing hours, it actually excelled in a few of our quality metrics. With fewer than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it did very well in this subcategory.

The next category we graded is long-term care, where this facility was given a grade of B- in this category. Our long-term care scores are more meaningful for those in need of more traditional assistance associated with activities of daily living. On top of considering the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. Fortunately, this facility provided the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients, which is a very respectable percentage. Finally, this nursing home was also able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

The final area we assessed was short-term care. In that category, we awarded this nursing home a grade of C. In the category of short-term care, we strive to evaluate measures of a nursing home's rehabilitation. We look at a facility's skilled nursing services, such as the ones performed by registered nurses and physical, occupational and other therapists. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all facilities employs these types of nurses. However, based on the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final measure we looked at in this category is the number of patients who ultimately returned home from the facility. We found that just 4.7 percent of this facility's residents returned home. Unfortunately, this was below the national average.