Forrest Oakes Healthcare Center

While we graded this place incredibly poorly overall, it actually received a very impressive government inspection report this year. As a result, it received one of our more favorable grades in that category with a B+. Inspection grades account for a host of factors found on a nursing home's inspection report. One key criteria we consider is the number and severity of deficiencies. You should avoid nursing homes with a bunch of deficiencies flagged. Although this facility had a few deficiencies on its inspection report, none of them were serious based on CMS' deficiency scale. A couple minor deficiencies are not the end of the world.

Sadly, this nursing home only received a D for its short-term care grade, which turns out to be one of its more favorable category scores. In determining our short-term care ratings, we analyze the facility's levels of skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists speech therapists and other types of therapists. This area is more often than not a reliable assessment of a facility's rehabilitation services. Given its weak rating in this area, we were not stunned to learn this facility offers far fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most nursing homes. The last item we looked at in this area is the number of patients who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We discovered that just 4.8 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home, which is well below average. The combination of these poor metrics doomed this nursing home's short-term care score.

This nursing home's second worse score is long-term care, where it earned a grade of just D in that area. This is a relatively poor grade. When facilities receive this kind of grade in this category it is typically a bad sign for resident care and it may indicate that the place is not as well-staffed. In addition to considering the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home administered the vaccine to 93.650795 percent of its patients. This is a bit lower than we expected but still a respectable percentage. Surprisingly, this place actually fared well at keeping its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days. This is its best score in this category.

The last area we assessed is nursing. Unfortunately, we gave it an abysmal F in this area, which is a poor grade. When determining our nursing grades, we factor in both staffing levels and the skill levels of those nurses. This nursing home averaged just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident on a daily basis. This number is well below average. Unfortunately, this facility also had abysmal marks in some of the quality-based metrics to pair with its low nursing hours. For starters, we looked at the percent of residents sustaining pressure ulcers. This facility was at more than double the national average in this metric.