Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center

On top of being a first rate nursing home overall, this facility also excelled in our inspections category, where it earned a grade of A+. Few facilities performed this well in this area. Inspection grades are based on datapoints located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes that score well in this area have few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these places should not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. 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.

In addition, this facility received quality marks in the category of short-term care. As a result, it was given one of our most impressive grades in that area with a grade of A+. Short-term care grades are often employed to grade a nursing home's performance with rehabilitation. To provide high-end rehabilitation services, nursing homes generally must feature better levels of skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists and other types of therapists. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the information they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Lastly, we looked at the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 7 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home.

The third category we analyzed was long-term care. Contributing to its dominant resume, this nursing home also excelled in this category. In fact, it received a grade of of A for the area. If you are seeking services other than rehabilitation, you should take a close look at each nursing home's long-term care ratings. Once we assessed the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination record. We were not able to locate information on vaccination rates. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

In the final category we rated, this nursing home was given an impressive grade grade of A in our nursing category. With this grade, the facility completed a straight A report card. Nursing grades are heavily correlated with nurse staffing levels. This nursing home provides 0.7 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures 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 facility the state in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as by employing a protocol of turning a patient more often.