Tug Valley ARH Regional Medical Center

On top of being a first rate nursing home overall, this nursing home also excelled in our inspections category, where it earned a grade of A+. Few nursing homes fared this well in this area. Arguably the most significant factor we look at in determining our inspection grades is deficiencies. These deficiencies can be found on a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Facilities with better scores in this area most likely dodged the most severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

One of the other reasons we graded this facility so highly is that it received a very impressive nursing score. In that area, we gave this nursing home an A+. Our nursing rating is based on many datapoints, however, the paramount consideration is the quantity of nurse hours spent with patients. This nursing home averages 0.8 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 generally be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

The next category we looked at is long-term care. This facility was superb in our long-term care category as well. We gave them an elite score of A+ in this area. Nursing homes that excel in this category typically are well-staffed and provide extensive hands on care to residents. On top of considering the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility provided the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients. Vaccines are critical to keeping residents healthy. Lastly, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. It had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

Turning to the final area, this nursing home also excelled in the short-term care category. We gave it an A in that category. This rounded out truly elite profile. Our short-term care grades are probably more important for patients requiring rehabilitation from their nursing home. Rehabilitation generally mandates more skilled nursing. This means not only nursing, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other variations of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all facilities employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the information they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final measure we assessed in this area is the number of patients that ultimately were able to return home from the facility. We found that 5.2 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.