Sarah Ann Hester Memorial Home

On top of being a first rate facility overall, this facility also excelled in the area of long-term care, where it earned an impressive grade of A+. Few facilities performed better in this area. Nursing homes that excel in this category typically are well-staffed and offer extensive hands on care to residents. On top of considering the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients, which is very impressive. Pneumonia sadly can be a deadly illness for nursing home residents so we strongly prefer when a facility doesn't leave this to chance. Finally, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

To complement its strong performance in other areas, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A for our inspections rating. Our nursing rating is largely associated with the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This particular nursing home provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This place performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a facility has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can typically be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

This nursing home also received a nearly flawless inspection report. It received one of our best grades in that category with a score of A. Perhaps the most important factor we consider in calculating our inspection ratings is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Facilities with better grades in this area typically dodged the most severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. This nursing home was assessed 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none of the deficiencies were considered to be major deficiencies. This tells you that the government inspectors did not consider any of these 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.

Switching gears to the last category, this nursing home was given an excellent short-term care grade. We gave it a grade of B+ in that category, completing one of our more favorable report cards. Our short-term care scores are based on the facility's quantity of skilled highly skilled professionals. This includes a vast range of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the data they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final measure we assessed in this category is the percentage of residents that ultimately returned home from the facility. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.