Ballwin Ridge Health & Rehabilitation

This facility's best category grade came in the area of health inspections. In this area, we gave this facility a B+. It outperformed most facilities in this category. Arguably the most significant factor we consider in determining our inspection grades is deficiencies. Deficiencies are found on a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places with higher grades in this area most likely avoided the most severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. While this nursing home had a few minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you that the inspectors didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. We should point out that deficiency-free inspections are uncommon in the industry.

Another one of this nursing home's stronger areas was in the category of nursing care. In that area, we gave this facility a grade of B+. Nursing scores are mostly based on the nursing home's nurse staffing. This facility provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics and this place excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place the state in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can typically be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as by having a protocol of turning a patient more often.

We also awarded this facility a solid grade in the category of short-term care, where it received a grade of C. In the area of short-term care, we seek to qualify measures of a nursing home's rehabilitation. We analyze a nursing home's skilled nursing services, including the ones performed by registered nurses and physical, occupational and other therapists. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final metric we assessed in this area is the percentage of residents who ultimately returned home from the facility. We found that just 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

The next category we graded was long-term care, ended up being this nursing home's weakest area. We awarded this facility a grade of D in this area. This is one of the few weak points of a strong profile. Nursing homes that receive this type of score in this category may not provide the type of consistent around the clock care that some other nursing homes offer. On top of assessing the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. We were a bit worried that this facility provided the vaccine to a relatively low 77.04918 percent of its residents. Surprisingly, this nursing home was actually able to limit hospitalizations. With only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this facility had fewer hospitalizations than many nursing homes. This is its best score in this category.