St Augustine Home for the Aged

To pair with a strong overall score, we gave this facility an A for our inspections rating. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in computing these inspection ratings. One of those factors is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of the deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some deficiencies can be relatively insignificant. Although this facility had a few deficiencies on its government inspection report, none of them were severe based on CMS' deficiency scale. A couple relatively minor deficiencies are not necessarily the end of the world.

We also wanted to emphasize the fact that this facility received an impressive grade of A- in our nursing category. Nursing ratings are tied to nurse staffing levels. This nursing home averages 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This facility performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a place 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 fared very well in the category of short-term care, where we awarded it a score of A-. Only a select group of facilities fared better in this area. In computing our short-term care grades, we assess the nursing home's levels of skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists occupational therapists and other licensed professionals. This area is typically a useful assessment of a facility's ability to rehabilitate patients. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Finally, we assessed the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's patients returned home.

In our final area, this facility also received an impressive long-term care score, with a B+. This completed a first-rate profile. When nursing homes receive this type of score in this category it is a good sign for resident care and suggests that the place is well-staffed with nurses aids. Once we assessed the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we turned to the facility's vaccination data. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its residents for pneumonia, which is far higher than the majority of nursing homes. Finally, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.