Summerford Nursing Home
4087 Highway 31 Southwest, Falkville AL 35622 · (256) 784-5275 · 94.86% estimated occupancy 1Updated: Aug 1, 2020 · By Sara Levinsohn
Summerford Nursing Home is located in Falkville, Alabama. With an overall score of A-, this is without a doubt a very good nursing home. We were so impressed with this nursing home that we ranked it in the top third of all nursing homes in the nation. This facility also received consistently good ratings in all of the major categories. More information about these categories is available below.
Additional Details:
Accepts Medicare 1 :
Accepts Medicaid 1 : 216 Beds
CCRC :
For profit - Corporation
Resident Council:
Family Council:
Medical Staff Hours Per Patient (2019)
Facility Inspections
In addition to being a strong facility overall, it also received A+ government inspections in recent years. Its inspections were nearly perfect. Inspection scores are tied to several items found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that excel in this category typically have very few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these facilities generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. Although this facility had some deficiencies on its report, none of them were serious based on CMS' scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.
Long-term Care Quality
We also would like to emphasize the fact that this nursing home was given a strong score of A in our long-term care area. When facilities receive this type of score in long-term care it is a good sign for patient care and indicates that the nursing home is well-staffed with nurses aids. Once we concluded our assessment of the amount of nursing care, we then analyzed the nursing home's vaccination records. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents against pneumonia, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia sadly is often a dangerous condition for nursing home residents so we strongly prefer when a facility doesn't roll the dice on this issue. Lastly, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. With only 1.59 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this nursing home had less hospitalizations than many nursing homes.
Nurse Quality
Another one of this facility's impressive category grades came in the area of nursing care. We awarded them one of our better scores in that area, with a grade of B. The nursing grade includes numerous subcategories. The most heavily weighted variable is the number of hours nurses spent with patients. This particular nursing home provided 3.7 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics and this place excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place the nation in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as employing a protocol of moving residents even once per day.
Short-term Care Quality
The next category we looked at is short-term care. This nursing home was awarded a better than average nursing score in our assessment, with a grade of B. While this is not as impressive as a few of its other category grades, this is nevertheless one of the more impressive scores for that category. Our short-term care grades are meaningful for people in need of rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically requires higher levels of skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes a wide scope of services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. We were pleased to find that this nursing home employs both registered nurses and physical therapists. The same can't be said for all nursing homes. The final datapoint we assessed in this category is the number of residents that who were able to eventually return home from the nursing home. We found that it fared better than most nursing homes in this area with 49.9 percent of its residents returning home.
Overall Rating Over Time
Compared to national and state averages across all facilities.
Summerford Nursing Home Quality Metrics
Minimizes Pressure Ulcers
This datapoint is an indication of the percent of long-term care patients who developed new or worsened pressure ulcers. We've found that pressure ulcers are a reliable barometer of nursing care quality.
Percent of Patients with Pressure Ulcers
Lower is Better
Minimizes Serious Falls
This metric tells you the percentage of long-term residents who have experienced a fall leading to serious injury. Falls can happen for a variety of reasons, but excessive numbers of falls may be an indicator of poor nursing care.
Percent of Patients with Serious Falls
Lower is Better
Minimizes Urinary Tract Infections
This indicates the percent of residents who sustained a urinary tract infection. These infections are linked to poorer hygiene.
Percent of Patients with UTIs
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Psychotic Medication
This is the percentage of residents who were given antipsychotic drugs. These drugs may be used to treat a variety of conditions, including cognitive disorders.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Anxiety Medication
This datapoint is a measure of the percent of long-term residents taking antianxiety drugs.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Managing Depression Among Residents
Measures the percent of long-term patients who are demonstrating symptoms of depression. Some argue that this is a measure of quality of life.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriate Vaccine Usage
This is the percentage of residents that were administered the pneumonia and flu vaccines. High vaccination rates should be the norm at this point.
Percent of Patients
Higher is Better
Residents Maintain Autonomy
This datapoint measures the percent of long-term patients that required additional assistance with activities of daily living over time. ADL's include activities such as moving around and bathing.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Ability to Keep Residents Mobile
This datapoint is a measure of the percentage of long-term patients that retained mobility levels.
Percentage of Residents
Higher is Better
Hospitalizations
This metric is a measure of the number of times residents are hospitalized per thousand days of patient care. Minimizing hospitalizations is key to the physical health of nursing home residents.
Hospitalizations per 1,000 resident days
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Rehospitalizations
This tells you the number of times residents are rehospitalized per thousand days of short-term patient care. There is typically a correlation between avoiding hospitalizations and a nursing home's quality of short-term rehabilitation.
Percentage of Residents Rehospitalized
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: ER Visits
This datapoint is a measure of the number of times residents are sent to the emergency room per thousand days of short-term care. Staying out of the emergency room is one way to measure patient care during rehabilitation.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Facilitates Functional Improvement
This is a measure of the percentage of short-term care patients who saw functional improvements, such as enhanced ability to perform activities of daily living. Many in the industry argue that this is a reasonable measure of a nursing home's rehabilitation performance.
Percentage of Resident
Higher is Better