Forrest General Hospital Skilled Nursing Unit

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a quality nursing home is that it received an A+ inspection grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this critical category. Arguably the most important factor we consider in computing our inspection scores is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Places with better grades in this area most likely dodged the more severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. Unfortunately, we were not able to track down deficiency data for this nursing home. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

One of the other reasons we graded this nursing home so highly is that it earned a very impressive nursing score. Nursing proved to be its second best category grade. In that area, we awarded this facility an A+. In calculating a nursing home's nursing score, we assess the amount of time nurses are seeing residents and the levels of training of those nurses. This nursing home averages 0.9 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This nursing home performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a place has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can frequently be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

The third category we assessed was short-term care. This facility also was given an A+ short-term care grade, making it one of the few nursing homes to be awarded more than one A+ category grades. In our short-term care grade, we attempt to craft a sound measure for rehabilitation. In doing so, we analyze a nursing home's scope of skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as speech therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. However, based on the data they 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 facility. We found that 6.5 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home.

Switching gears to our final area, this nursing home also excelled in our long-term care category. In fact, we gave it an A for this category. This wrapped up truly elite report card. For prospective patients in need of a permanent residence rather than skilled nursing, long-term care grades are very important. Once we looked at the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then looked at the facility's vaccination record. Unfortunately, it does not look like this nursing home submitted information on its vaccination levels. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.