Foster Health & Rehabilitation Center

Although we graded this facility incredibly poorly overall, it received a decent short-term care score this year. We gave it a B- in that category. Our short-term care grades are thought to be most critical for patients in need of a nursing home for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally mandates higher levels of highly-skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing means not merely nursing services, but also physical and respiratory therapy, as well as other types of therapy. We found that this place was below average in the two key staffing areas we assessed. The facility offered fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than most other facilities. The final item we looked at in this category is the percentage of patients that ultimately were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that just 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home.

This facility really excelled in nursing, where it received an B-. Few nursing homes performed better in this area. Our nursing score is largely associated with a nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a relatively low total compared to most other facilities. Lastly, despite not having the most impressive total nursing hours per resident, this facility actually performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is usually an indicator that a place has sufficient quality controls in place.

This nursing home received a grade of just D in the area of inspections. Inspection scores weigh several factors found on a nursing home's inspection reports. One key criteria we look at is the number and severity of deficiencies. This particular nursing home had 3 deficiencies by CMS. The only positive thing we found is that none of these deficiencies were in the categories that suggest that they created a threat to patient health or safety. Finally, we want to point out that this nursing home was assessed significant government fines in recent years amounting to over $100,000. This usually means that a bad track record has been an issue for multiple years.

Moving on to our last area, this facility didn't fare well in this category either. With a poor grade of F in long-term care, this is about as as uninspiring as it gets. Long-term care ratings in this range generally are a bad sign for the quantity and quality of care provided by nurses and aids. After considering the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination records. Frankly, we were a bit concerned this facility vaccinated 74.81481 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is significantly below what we were hoping for. Surprisingly, this facility was actually able to limit hospitalizations. With only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this nursing home has fewer hospitalizations than many nursing homes. This is its best score in this category.