The Timbers of Jasper

In addition to earning a great overall rating, this facility fared even better in our inspections category which is based on the nursing home's recent inspection reports. In fact, we awarded it an A+ for that area, which is one of our highest scores. Our inspection ratings are based on pieces of information found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes that score well in this category have few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these nursing homes generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. This particular nursing home received 5 deficiencies on its inspection report. Overall, this is still a good inspection report, but we'd always recommend looking into any deficiencies you find troubling.

Contributing to its profile, this nursing home also received a grade of B for its long-term care rating. This is an above average grade in this category. When facilities receive a score in this range in this category it generally means it's well-staffed and is a quality place to live on a permanent basis. On top of considering the volume of care provided by nurses and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients, which is significantly higher than the vast majority of nursing homes. Lastly, this facility 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.

The next highest grade we gave this nursing home came in the category of nursing, where we gave it a grade of B-. This wasn't quite as good as some of its other scores, but a grade in this range is not the end of the world. Our nursing rating assesses the facility's level of nurse staffing. We look at both the levels of skill of those nurses and the amount of time spent with residents. This facility provided just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident daily. This figure is far below the national average. Finally, nursing grades also consider quality-based measures, such as preventing major falls. Despite not having the highest total nursing hours, this facility performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is typically a good indicator that a facility has quality controls in place. Some falls can be avoided if a nursing home supplies enough nurses aids to assist its residents.

Turning to the final category, we gave this nursing home a D for the area of short-term care. This was the facility's weakest category score. Unfortunately, this score hurt the nursing home's overall grade to some degree. In determining these short-term care ratings, we assess the facility's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, speech therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The goal is to devise a barometer for sizing up the rehabilitation services of different nursing homes. Unfortunately, we found that this nursing home provided fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other facilities. The last item we considered in this category is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We discovered that just 4 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home, which is well below average. The combination of these subpar metrics was damning for this nursing home's short-term care grade.