NHC HealthCare Oak Ridge

On top of faring well overall, this nursing home earned a nearly flawless inspection report. As a result, it earned one of our highest scores in that area with an A+. Arguably the most important factor we look at in determining our inspection scores is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a facility's inspection reports. Nursing homes with higher grades in this area typically avoided the most severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. Fortunately, although this nursing home had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones found in categories G through L. This means that the government inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. A few minor deficiencies are not the end of the world.

This facility also was dominant in the area of short-term care, where it received a grade of A. Only a select group of nursing homes fared better in this category. Our short-term care grades are based in part on a nursing home's quantity of skilled highly skilled professionals. This includes a vast range of services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, in addition to other forms of therapy. Unfortunately, we weren't able to locate information about this nursing home's registered nurse or physical therapy staffing. The final item we assessed in this area is the number of patients who ultimately were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that 6.4 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

Adding to its profile, this facility also earned a grade of B for its nursing rating. This is a well above average score in this category. The nursing grade consists of many factors, most of which are tied to levels of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures and this facility excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any facility the state in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as employing a protocol of moving a patient more often.

The last area we scored was this nursing home's worst area. However, even its lowest point would actually be a strength for many facilities. We gave it a strong grade of B for our long-term care category. If you are seeking services other than short-term rehabilitation, you should take a close look at each nursing home's long-term care ratings. In addition to assessing the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility vaccinated 91.83006 percent of its residents, which is a few points lower than we were hoping for. Finally, this facility 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.