Fowler Health Care

In addition to performing well in its overall grade, this facility received an excellent nursing grade. In fact, we gave it a grade of A in that category. We assessed the qualifications of nurses at the nursing home, in addition to the number of hours the nurses worked with residents, in calculating our grade in this category. This facility provided 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also assessed some nursing quality-based metrics in determining our nursing grades. This nursing home performed very well in terms of minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

Adding to this facility's impressive resume, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A- for our inspections rating. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in computing our inspection scores. One of those factors is health deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of the deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some deficiencies are relatively insignificant. 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.

Contributing to its first-rate assessment, this nursing home also was given a strong long-term care grade, with a score of A-. Nursing homes that receive this type of score in long-term care tend to provide consistent 24/7 care to make sure patients are well cared for. Once we concluded our assessment of the volume of nursing care, we next considered the facility's vaccination records. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is what we like to see. Pneumonia is too frequently a dangerous illness for nursing home patients so we prefer when a nursing home doesn't roll the dice on this issue. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

Turning to our last category, this facility was awarded an extremely favorable short-term care grade. In fact, we awarded it a B+ in that area, completing one of our more impressive profiles. Our short-term care scores are thought to be most important for people in need of a nursing home for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically requires additional highly-skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes not merely nursing, but also physical and respiratory therapy, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all facilities employs these types of nurses. However, according to the information they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last datapoint we assessed in this category is the number of patients that were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.