Mary Scott Nursing Center

While we gave this facility a terrible overall grade, we gave it a B- for short-term care. In the category of short-term care, we endeavor to assess measures of a nursing home's rehabilitation services. We assess a facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses and physical and occupational therapists. In this place's case, we were surprised to learn that it actually provides less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per patient than the average facility. The hope is always that this does not adversely affect the quality of care. Finally, we considered the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their residents are able to return home so this figure is below average.

This nursing home excelled in the area of nursing, where it earned an C. Few facilities fared better in this area. Nursing ratings are primarily tied to the facility's level of nurse staffing. This facility averages just 0.3 hours of nursing care per patient per day, which is well below average. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this nursing home actually fared better in some of the quality measures we assessed. In fact, it performed well in the area of minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers. We consider these areas to be reliable indicators of the quality of nursing care. In some cases, the quality of nursing care is as important as the quantity of hours of care provided.

Unfortunately, with a grade of D in the inspection category, this facility performed relatively poorly in that area. Our inspection grades account for several factors included in a nursing home's inspection report. One key criteria we rely on is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. This particular nursing home had 3 deficiencies by government inspectors. The only favorable thing we found is that none of the deficiencies were in the categories that indicate they created a risk to patient safety or health. Finally, we need to point out that this nursing home was assessed large government fines recently of more than $100,000. This usually suggests that a nursing home's bad performance has been an issue for more than one year.

Turning to the fourth area, this nursing home did not fare well in this area either. With a very poor grade of F in long-term care, this is just about as as uninspiring as it gets. Nursing homes that receive this kind of score in long-term care may not provide the kind of consistent around the clock care that some other facilities offer. One of the data points we considered in addition to nursing hours was vaccines. Candidly, we were a bit worried that this facility administered the pneumonia vaccination to a relatively low 84.38818 percent of its patients. Surprisingly, this facility was actually decent at keeping its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had just 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days. This is its best feature in this category.