Falkville Health & Rehab Center

To go along with its strong overall grade, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A+ for our inspections rating. Inspection grades are based on many datapoints found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes that receive favorable grades in this area tend to have few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these facilities generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a 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 also received a first-rate long-term care score. This actually is its second best category grade. In that category, we awarded this facility a score of A. Long-term care ratings of this caliber generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine medical care. Once we looked at the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then analyzed the nursing home's vaccination record. This nursing home vaccinated 99.29825 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is far higher than the majority of nursing homes. Lastly, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

Adding to its profile, this facility also earned a grade of B+ for its nursing rating. This is a well above average score in this category. There are several subcategories within this category. Many of these subcategories relate to staffing levels. This nursing home averages 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics 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 nursing home the state in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as employing a protocol of turning patients more often.

The next area we looked at is short-term care. In that area, we gave this facility an acceptable grade of B-. This actually is this nursing home's worst category. With our short-term care grade, we attempt to craft a fair barometer for rehabilitation. In this process, we analyze the facility's levels of skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as respiratory therapy. We were not able to track down information about this nursing home's registered nurse or physical therapy staffing. Finally, we assessed the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 4.9 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.