Fernhill Estates

On top of having a decent overall score, we also would like to point out that this facility received favorable inspections in recent years. We awarded them one of our better grades in this category, with a grade of B+. This is a much better score than the nursing home's overall score. Inspection scores weigh several factors, including deficiencies, substantiated complaints and federal fines. You can find more information about each of these items by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. Unfortunately, this place was hit with a category L deficiency, which is not what we expected given its inspection rating. This category of deficiency means CMS uncovered a widespread deficiency putting patient safety or health in imminent jeopardy. Any serious deficiency is a major concern. In spite of this major red flag, other aspects of this facility's inspection report gave us some hope.

One of the other reasons we rated this nursing home so highly is that it received a very impressive nursing grade. In that area, we gave this nursing home an B+. The nursing score consists of many datapoints, many of which are associated with nursing hours. This nursing home averages 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics and this nursing home excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any facility the country in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can typically be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as by employing a policy of turning a patient more frequently.

We also gave this facility an impressive score in short-term care. This nursing home received a B+ in this category, which is one of our better scores. Short-term care scores are critical for prospective residents seeking rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually utilizes more skilled nursing. Skilled nursing means a broad spectrum of services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all facilities employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Finally, we considered the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home.

The final category we rated is long-term care. We awarded this facility a D for our long-term care category, making this the facility's worst grade. When nursing homes receive a grade in this range in this category it typically means the nursing home didn't perform well in our measures relating to patient care. After looking at the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination data. We were a bit alarmed this facility vaccinated 58.878506 percent of its residents for pneumonia, which happens to be several points less than the national average. Surprisingly, this nursing home was actually decent at keeping its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had just 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days. This is its best score in this category.