Diversicare of Pell City

This nursing home earned a long-term care grade which is better than its overall score. We gave this facility a B in this category. This helped its overall grade. When facilities receive this kind of grade in long-term care it is a good sign for patient care and indicates that the nursing home is well-staffed with nurses aids. In addition to assessing the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 99.5122 percent of its patients, which is what we like to see. Pneumonia is often a life threatening condition for nursing home patients so we like it when a facility does not take any chances. Finally, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. It had only 0.03 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

Another one of this nursing home's stronger areas was in the category of nursing care. In that area, we gave this facility a grade of B. Our nursing score is largely based on the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This facility provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures and this place 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 Alabama in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as having a policy of turning residents at least once a day.

This nursing home also received favorable government inspections in recent years. We awarded them one of our better scores in that area, with a B. This grade is also better than the facility's overall score. These inspection grades take several factors into consideration, including deficiencies, substantiated complaints and federal fines. You can learn more about each of these items by reviewing copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. This facility was hit with 6 deficiencies on its inspection report, but fortunately none of the deficiencies were considered severe. This indicates that the inspectors did not deem any of these deficiencies to create an immediate risk to resident health or safety. The fact that the deficiencies were relatively minor made us feel better about this inspection report.

The final area we assessed was short-term care. This facility received a B- in the category. Short-term care grades are typically employed to gauge a facility's rehabilitation services. In order to provide high-end rehabilitation services, facilities generally need to offer better levels of skilled nursing. These types of services include registered nurses, physical therapists, respiratory therapists and other highly trained professionals. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Finally, we considered the percentage of residents who ultimately returned home from this facility. We found that 4.8 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home. This figure was well below the national average.