The Waters of Covington

Although we gave this facility a terrible overall grade, we awarded it a grade of B- for our inspections rating. In fact, the facility received very impressive inspection report this year. Inspection scores weigh several factors found on a facility's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we rely on is the number and severity of deficiencies. Fortunately, although this facility had some minor dings on its report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means CMS didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Finally, CMS cited this nursing home for possible abuse or neglect. Hopefully, its performance improves in the future, but until then we simply can't recommend this facility.

Remarkably, we awarded this facility a grade of C for its long-term care score, which is not a bad grade. Long-term care grades are generally used to assess a facility's performance as a traditional convalescent home, as opposed to focusing more on the skilled nursing services provided by a skilled nursing facility. After considering the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination statistics. This facility vaccinated 91.71597 percent of its residents for pneumonia, which happens to be slightly below what we were hoping for but still a reasonably acceptable percentage. Fortunately, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

We also wanted to point out that this nursing home received an F for its nursing grade. In calculating our nursing grades, we factor in both the number of hours nurses spend with residents and the levels of licensure of the nurses. This place offered just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident daily. Lastly, we also assessed some nursing quality-based metrics in determining our nursing grades. This nursing home fared well when it comes to minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers. We consider these datapoints to be good measures of the quality of nursing care.

The final category we assessed is short-term care, where this facility received a very poor grade in this category also. Sadly, it received an F for this category, which is definitely a major disappointment. In determining our short-term care grades, we analyze the nursing home's levels of skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists respiratory therapists and other highly skilled individuals. This score is more often than not a reliable measure of a facility's rehabilitation services. Considering its score in this category, we weren't stunned to learn that this facility is well below average in terms of its number of physical therapy and registered nurse hours offered to its residents based on the metrics we looked at. Frankly, this was what we expected to find. The last statistic we assessed in this category is the number of residents that eventually returned home from the facility. This nursing home struggled quite a bit in this area as well, with just 3.4 percent of its patients returning home.