AHC Dyersburg

This facility earned a solid overall grade as described above, but we really wanted to point out its nearly flawless health inspection reports in recent years. We awarded them an A in this category. Arguably the most significant factor we look at in computing our inspection grades is deficiencies. Deficiencies can be found on a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Facilities with better scores in this area most likely avoided the most severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. This nursing home received 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe. This tells you that CMS did not consider any of the deficiencies an immediate risk to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

In addition, we awarded this nursing home a grade of B in our long-term care category. This happens to be one of our higher grades. Nursing homes that receive this kind of grade in this category tend to provide consistent around the clock care to make sure patients are kept in good health. One of the factors we considered on top of nursing hours was vaccines. This facility provided the pneumonia vaccine to 99 percent of its residents. Vaccination is a reliable method to minimize unnecessary deaths for the elderly population. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

The next highest grade we gave this nursing home in any area came in the category of nursing, where we gave it a grade of C. Nursing grades are tied to nurse staffing levels. This facility provided just 0.4 hours of nursing care per patient per day. This is a low total compared with most facilities. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics. Although this facility got docked a bit for its nursing hours per resident, it actually excelled in a few of these quality-based measures. With fewer than five percent of its residents suffering from pressure ulcers, it did very well in this area. This is typically an indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as by having a system of moving patients more often.

The last area we looked at is short-term care. We gave it a C in that area. This is a fair grade in this category. In determining our short-term care grades, we assess a facility's levels of skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists speech therapists and other types of therapists. This grade is generally a meaningful measure of the facility's ability to rehabilitate patients. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that this facility provided information on registered nurse or physical therapist staffing. Finally, we looked at the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 4.6 percent of this facility's patients returned home. At most nursing homes, closer to half of their patients are able to return home so this figure is below average.