Kirkwood by the River

In addition to being a first rate nursing home overall, this facility also performed well in our inspections category, where it earned an A+. Few nursing homes fared this well in this category. Our inspection scores weigh several factors found on a nursing home's inspection report. One key criteria we weigh heavily is the number and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better scores in this category usually have few of these severe deficiencies. This nursing home received 2 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none were considered to be major deficiencies. This indicates that the inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies to create an immediate threat to resident health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This nursing home also was awarded an A+ long-term care grade, making it one of the few facilities to be given more than one A+ category scores. Facilities that do well in this category typically are well-staffed and provide extensive hands on care to residents. Once we concluded our assessment of the quantity of care provided by nurses, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination data. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its residents against pneumonia, which is what we like to see. Pneumonia sadly is often a life threatening condition for nursing home residents so we like it when a nursing home does not leave its residents vulnerable. Finally, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

Adding to its strong resume, this facility also received an excellent nursing score, with a grade of A-. We assessed the skill-level of nurses at the facility, in addition to the quantity of time the nurses spent with residents, in computing our score in this area. This nursing home provides 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics and this place excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any nursing home Alabama in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by having a system of moving residents even once per day.

The last area we assessed was short-term care, where this facility was given a grade of B-. While this proved to be its poorest category score, this is still a middle of the pack score. In the area of short-term care, we attempt to assess indicators of a nursing home's rehabilitation services. We analyze the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including the ones performed by registered nurses and physical, occupational and other therapists. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Finally, we considered the percentage of patients who ultimately returned home from this facility. We found that 4.4 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home. This figure was actually quite a bit below average.