Fahrney-Keedy Memorial Home

In addition to earning a strong overall grade, this nursing home also earned an elite short-term care grade. We gave them one of our higher scores in that area, with an impressive grade of A. In computing our short-term care ratings, we assess the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The objective is to formulate a tool for comparing the rehabilitation services of nursing homes. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not all facilities employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Finally, we looked at the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 6 percent of this facility's residents returned home.

In addition, this facility also excelled in the area of inspections, where it earned a grade of A-. Few nursing homes performed as well in this category. Our inspection scores are based on many pieces of information found on the a nursing home's recent inspections. Facilities that excel in this area have few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these facilities should not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. While this nursing home had a few minor dings on its report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means that the inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This nursing home is also above average in the area of long-term care, where it was awarded a grade of B+. It outperformed most nursing homes in this area. Facilities that receive this type of score in this category typically provide consistent 24/7 care to make sure patients are well cared for. After assessing the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination records. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is far higher than the majority of nursing homes. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

The final area we assessed was nursing. We awarded this facility one of our more favorable scores in this area, with a B. This facility ended up being strong in all areas we analyzed. Nursing grades are based in large part on quantity of nursing care available. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality measures and this facility excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any facility Maryland in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by employing a protocol of moving a patient at least once a day.