Fowler Care Center

To go along with its strong overall grade, we awarded this facility a grade of A+ for our long-term care rating. When nursing homes receive a grade in this range in this category it typically means it has plenty of staff and is a quality place to reside on a permanent basis. In addition to assessing the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home provided the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is far higher than the vast majority of nursing homes. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

Among its many impressive grades, this facility earned an excellent nursing score. We gave it an B+ in that area. Nursing scores are primarily associated with the nursing home's nurse staffing. This facility provided 0.4 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 nation in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as employing a policy of turning a patient more frequently.

This facility received a solid inspection report this year as well, with few dings from the applicable government inspectors. As a result, it earned one of our better grades in that category with a score of B-. Inspection ratings weigh a host of factors included in a nursing home's inspection report. One key criteria we consider is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. It does not look like we have deficiency data for this facility. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Switching gears to the fourth category, this facility was given a C in short-term care, which is a respectable rating. Our short-term care ratings are arguably most critical for those needing a nursing home for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically mandates higher levels of highly-skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes not just nursing services, but also physical and respiratory therapy, as well as other types of therapy. Unfortunately, it does not look like this nursing home submitted information about its staffing of registered nurses or physical therapists. The final metric we considered in this category is the number of residents who who were able to eventually return home from the nursing home. We found that just 0 percent of this facility's patients returned home.