Fulton County Medical Center

On top of performing well in its overall grade, this facility performed at an even higher level in the area of inspections. In fact, it received a nearly flawless inspection report this year. As a result, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A. Our inspection grades are based on pieces of information located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that score well in this area tend to have very few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these facilities generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. This nursing home was assessed 2 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe deficiencies. This indicates that the government inspectors didn't consider any of these deficiencies to cause an immediate threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This facility was awarded a favorable short-term care grade as well. We awarded it one of our better grades in that area with a grade of B+. Short-term care grades are important for individuals needing rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually utilizes additional skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing means a vast spectrum of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, as well as other types of therapy. It doesn't appear that this nursing home submitted registered nurse or physical therapist staffing data. The last metric we looked at in this category is the number of patients who were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

Additionally, this nursing home also received favorable long-term care scores in our assessment. In fact, we gave it one of our more favorable scores in that category, with a grade of B+. Facilities that do well in long-term care typically are well-staffed and provide extensive hands on care to residents. In addition to assessing the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents. Vaccines are critical to keeping residents healthy. Clearly, this facility 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 a remarkably low figure.

The next category we scored is nursing, in which this nursing home was awarded a B. This nursing home turned out to be relatively strong in each category we looked at. When determining our nursing scores, we assess both nursing hours and the skill levels of those nurses. This nursing home averages 0 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also looked at certain nursing quality-based metrics in computing our nursing grades. These include minimizing residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. We look at these statistics as good indicators of the caliber of nursing care being provided, since better care tends to reduce these problems.