Diversicare of Tupelo

Although this nursing home's overall grade was as bad as it gets, it actually didn't perform as badly in the area of nursing. In fact, we awarded it a B- for that category. When calculating our nursing scores, we weigh both the number of hours nurses spend with residents and the training levels of the nurses. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a relatively low total compared to most other facilities. Lastly, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based measures, such as preventing major falls. Despite not having the most impressive total nursing hours per resident, this nursing home actually performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is generally a reliable indicator that a nursing home has sufficient quality controls in place. Many falls can be avoided if a facility provides enough nurses to assist its patients.

We were also surprised to learn that this nursing home received a somewhat respectable long-term care score this year. We awarded it a grade of C in this category. If you are looking for anything other than short-term rehabilitation, you should take a close look at long-term care scores. On top of looking at the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home provided the vaccine to 91.860466 percent of its residents, which is somewhat lower than we expected. On a more positive note, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

This nursing home also didn't rate terribly in the category of short-term care. Indeed, we awarded it a grade of C for that category, which wound up being another one of its more favorable scores. Our short-term care grade is commonly used to score a facility's performance with rehabilitation To have quality rehabilitation services, nursing homes generally need to have better levels of skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists and other highly skilled individuals. Unfortunately, this facility was below average in terms of its level of registered nurse and physical therapy hours provided to its patients based on the metrics we assessed. Lastly, we looked at the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 5.1 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most nursing homes, closer to half of their patients are able to return home so this figure is below average.

Turning the last category of inspections, this ended up being this nursing home's weakest link. Inspection grades are based on a facility's recent government inspection reports. We gave this facility a score of D in this category, which is not a very good grade. Inspection grades weigh many items on the facility's recent inspection reports. When you find too many deficiencies on the reports, this is typically the worst sign. Severe deficiencies indicate a risk to the well being of residents. This nursing home had 4 deficiencies by government inspectors. The only favorable thing we found is that none of these deficiencies were in the categories that suggest they created a threat to resident safety or health. Finally, CMS flagged this nursing home for possible abuse or neglect. This is not what you want to see. We advise you to direct your search elsewhere.