Ash Grove Healthcare Facility

Ash Grove Healthcare Facility is an average-sized non-profit nursing home in Ash Grove, Missouri. Featuring an overall score of B, this is a fine nursing home. Based on our ratings, this facility has quite a bit going for it. Fortunately, this facility didn't have any bad scores in any of the four major categories. Additional information about its category grades is available below.

In addition to performing well in its overall grade, this facility performed at an even higher level in the area of inspections. In fact, it received a nearly flawless inspection report this year. As a result, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A+. Inspection ratings account for several factors found on a facility's inspection reports. One key criteria we rely on is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with better grades in this area generally have very few severe deficiencies. Fortunately, although this nursing home had a few minor dings on its report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means that the inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

An additional quality feature for this facility is that it was awarded an above average long-term care score. In fact, this ended up being its second best category score. In that area, we gave this facility a B+. When facilities receive this kind of score in long-term care it is a good sign for resident care and suggests that the facility is well-staffed with nurses and aids. In addition to assessing the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents. Vaccines are critical to keeping patients out of the hospital. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.84 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

The third area we looked at was short-term care. In that area, we gave this facility a solid grade of B-. Our short-term care scores are based on a facility's quantity of highly-skilled skilled healthcare professionals. This means a wide scope of services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, in addition to other forms of therapy. This nursing home employs both physical therapists and registered nurses. Not all facilities employ these skilled professionals. Finally, we considered the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 42.3 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their residents are able to return home so this is below average.

The last category we rated was nursing. For this category, we awarded this facility a C. Our nursing grade is largely associated with a nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This place provides 2.8 hours of nursing care per resident each day. This is a much lower figure than we were hoping for. Lastly, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics. Although this facility got docked a bit for its nursing hours, it actually excelled in some of these quality-based measures. With less than five percent of its patients sustaining pressure ulcers, it fared well in this statistic. This is often an indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as employing a protocol of moving a patient more often.