Kennedy Post Acute Care Center

Although this nursing home's overall score was not a highlight, it did receive a very good grade in the area of inspections. We awarded it a B for that area, which is one of our better grades. Our inspection grades weigh a host of factors found on a facility's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we rely on is the number and severity of deficiencies. You generally want to avoid facilities with a list of severe deficiencies flagged. This place was hit with 6 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe. This indicates that the inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies to be an imminent threat to resident safety or health. A few minor deficiencies aren't necessarily the end of the world.

The next most favorable category we awarded this facility in any area came in the category of long-term care, where we gave it a C. In a long-term care setting, the facility's primary objective is to keep patients as healthy and safe as possible. This is different than skilled nursing or short-term care where the goal is to rehabilitate patients. On top of assessing the volume of care provided by nurses and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility provided the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients. This facility also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.03 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

This nursing home's second least favorable score is short-term care, where it earned a grade of just D in that area. This is a well below average grade. In the category of short-term care, we strive to evaluate measures of a facility's rehabilitation services. We analyze a facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses and physical and occupational therapists. As you might expect, we learned that this facility offers substantially less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per patient than a typical nursing home. Finally, we considered the percentage of residents that ultimately were able to return home from this facility. This nursing home didn't fare well here either. In fact, we found that just 4.5 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home. This figure was well off the national average.

This nursing home's worst category was nursing, which is the last area we assessed. In this area, we gave this nursing home a grade of just D. Our nursing grade considers a host of factors. The most heavily weighted factor is the number of hours nurses spend with patients. With only 0.4 hours of nursing care per patient on a daily basis, this nursing home's nurse staffing levels were far below the national average. Unfortunately, this place also had abysmal marks in some of the quality-based metrics to go along with its low nursing hours. We looked at the percentage of residents sustaining pressure ulcers and we were very disappointed. This place was at approximately 150 percent of the national average in this area.