Fall River Healthcare

This nursing home received an inspection grade which is better than its overall score. Inspection scores are tied to a nursing home's recent government inspections. We awarded this facility an above average grade of B+ in this area. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in determining these inspection grades. One of those factors is deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of deficiencies is arguably more important than the quantity of deficiencies, as some of these can be relatively insignificant. While this nursing home had some minor dings on its report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G through L. This tells you the inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. A couple of minor deficiencies shouldn't stop you from considering a nursing home.

This facility performed well in our nursing category. In fact, we awarded it an B- for that category, which is one of our highest grades. Our nursing rating is largely based on the facility's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident on a daily basis. This is a lower figure than we are used to seeing. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this facility surprisingly fared better in some of the quality measures we looked at. In fact, it performed well in terms of minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers. We consider these areas to be measures of the quality of nursing care. In many cases, the quality of nursing care is as important as the number of hours of care provided.

This nursing home's next best category is long-term care. We awarded it a grade of B- in this area. This is basically a middle of the pack score in this category. If you are seeking services other than rehabilitation, you should take a close look at each nursing home's long-term care ratings. On top of considering the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home gave the vaccine to 88.222694 percent of its patients. This is many points below what we expected. Fortunately, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

This nursing home's least impressive category was short-term care, which is the last category we scored. It received a lowly F in this area. In spite of a few decent scores in other areas, this grade is nevertheless of a concern so we wanted to point it out. Our short-term care grade is typically employed to gauge a nursing home's rehabilitation services. In order to offer highly rated rehabilitation services, nursing homes generally need to feature higher levels of skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, respiratory therapists and other licensed professionals. Not surprisingly, we found that this nursing home provides far less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than the average facility. Lastly, we considered the number of residents who who were able to eventually return home from this nursing home. This nursing home didn't fare well here either. In fact, we found that just 4.2 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home. This figure was well off the national average.