Piedmont Augusta Extended Care Kentwood

We want to point out that this facility really outperformed its overall score in the area of inspections. In fact, it received an excellent inspection report this year. As a result, it received one of our best grades in that category with an A+. Inspection grades weigh a host of factors found on a facility's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we consider is the number and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better grades in this area usually have few of these severe deficiencies. This place was hit with 2 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none were considered to be severe deficiencies. This means that the inspectors did not consider any of these deficiencies an immediate threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is always a good sign.

We also wanted to point out that this facility was awarded a strong long-term care score. In fact, we gave it one of our most impressive grades in this category with a score of A-. Long-term care grades in this range generally require both 24/7 care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine medical care. In addition to considering the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home gave the vaccine to 92.62673 percent of its residents. This is somewhat below what we expected but still a respectable percentage. Finally, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

Sadly, we gave this facility an F for its short-term care score. Short-term care ratings are based in part on a facility's quantity of skilled nursing services. This includes a wide scope of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, not to mention other variations of therapy. With a score of this caliber for this category, we weren't surprised to find that this nursing home was well below average in two of the key staffing metrics we assess. The facility offered substantially fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per patient than most other nursing homes. The final item we looked at in this area is the percentage of patients that who were able to eventually return home from the nursing home. This nursing home struggled quite a bit in this metric as well, with just 4.4 percent of its patients returning home.

The final area we scored is nursing. Sadly, it received an abysmal F for this area, which is a bottom of the barrel score. This is clearly a major disappointment. Our nursing grade looks at the facility's level of nurse staffing. We consider both the levels of licensure of those nurses as well as the number of hours spent with residents. This facility provided just 0.2 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low total compared to most nursing homes. Unfortunately, this place also had terrible scores in some of the quality-based measures to pair with its weak nursing hour totals. We looked at the percent of residents suffering pressure ulcers and we were quite disappointed. This facility was at roughly 150 percent of the national average in this statistic. This is a bad sign in light of the fact that so many pressure ulcers could be avoided with better nursing care. This metric helped pull down this facility's nursing grade significantly.