Tug Valley ARH Regional Medical Center

In addition to being an elite facility overall, this facility performed well in the area of inspections, where it earned a grade of A+. Very few nursing homes fared this well in this category. Our inspection grades are tied to several items located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that receive favorable grades in this area have very few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these nursing homes generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. 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.

We also awarded this nursing home a grade of A+ for its nursing grade. Nursing scores are based largely on nurse staffing levels. This particular nursing home provided 0.7 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 nursing home 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 area of short-term care, where we gave it a grade of A. Not many facilities performed better in this category. In crafting our short-term care scores, we quantify the facility's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. The purpose is to create a tool for sizing up the rehabilitation services of various nursing homes. Fortunately, this nursing home offers both physical therapists and registered nurses. Not all facilities offer both. Lastly, we considered the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 5.2 percent of this facility's residents returned home.

Moving on to the fourth category, this facility received an extremely favorable long-term care score. We gave it an A- in that area, resulting in this facility receiving straight A's. Nursing homes that receive this kind of score in this category tend to provide consistent 24/7 care to make sure residents are kept in good health. In addition to assessing the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home gave the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents. Vaccines are critical to keeping residents out of the hospital. Lastly, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.