Tucker Wellness & Rehabilitation Center

The primary reason this ended up being a decent nursing home is that it received an elite inspection score. Its inspection score was far better than its overall grade. In our inspections category, we gave this facility an A. These inspection grades weigh several factors, including deficiencies and substantiated complaints. You can find more information about each of these factors by reviewing copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. This nursing home received 5 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe deficiencies. This means that CMS didn't deem any of the deficiencies to pose an immediate risk to resident safety or health. A few minor deficiencies should not stop you from considering a nursing home.

We also gave this facility a decent grade in the category of long-term care, with a B-. In determining our long-term care ratings, we size up the personal care offered to a facility's residents. In addition to looking at the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home administered the vaccine to 91.003456 percent of its residents. This is slightly lower than we anticipated but still a decent percentage. Nevertheless, this facility was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

This nursing home's next best category was nursing. We awarded it a grade of C in this category. This is basically a middle of the road grade in this category. Our nursing score analyzes the facility's level of nurse staffing. We factor in both the levels of licensure of the nurses as well as the quantity of hours spent with residents. This place provided just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a low total compared to most facilities. Finally, our nursing ratings also consider quality-based assessments, such as preventing major falls. Despite not having the highest total nursing hours per resident, this nursing home actually performed admirably in the metric of preventing major falls. This is often a reliable indicator that a nursing home has sufficient quality controls in place. Some falls can be avoided if a facility supplies enough nurses aids to assist its residents.

Turning to the final category, this facility did not perform well. With a bottom of the barrel grade of F in short-term care, this was its worst category. In crafting these short-term care ratings, we assess the facility's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The objective is to devise a tool for sizing up the rehabilitation services of various facilities. With its score in this area, we weren't surprised to discover that this place is well below average in terms of its number of physical therapy and registered nurse hours offered to its patients based on the metrics we assessed. The final statistic we assessed in this area is the number of patients that ultimately were able to return home from the facility. This nursing home struggled quite a bit in this area as well, with just 4.7 percent of its patients returning home. Unfortunately, this was well below average.