Lawson Nursing Home

In addition to receiving a strong overall grade, this facility fared even better in our inspections category which is associated with the facility's recent inspections. In fact, we gave it an A- for this area, which is one of our best scores. Our inspection scores weigh several factors included in a facility'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 very few severe deficiencies. While this facility had some deficiencies on its report, none of them were serious based on CMS' scale. A few minor deficiencies aren't something to panic about.

Adding to its profile, this facility also earned a grade of B+ for its short-term care rating. This is an above average grade in this area. In computing our short-term care grades, we look at a facility's levels of highly skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists speech therapists and other licensed professionals. This category is considered to be a solid assessment of the nursing home's rehabilitation services. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not all facilities employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final datapoint we looked at in this area is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We discovered that 4.6 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

In addition, this facility also received favorable nursing grades this year. In fact, we awarded them one of our better scores in that area, with a grade of B. The nursing score is based on several factors, many of which are associated with nursing hours. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at some nursing quality measures in determining our nursing grades. This place performed very well when it comes to minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

The next category we assessed is long-term care. This nursing home received a C in the area. In our long-term care score, we focus on the sheer quantity of services offered by a nursing home, along with some qualitative measures. On top of assessing the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients, which is better than the vast majority of nursing homes. Finally, this facility was also able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.