Central Todd County Care Center

To go along with a favorable overall score, we awarded this nursing home an A+ for our inspections rating. Arguably the most critical factor we look at in computing our inspection grades is deficiencies. These deficiencies can be found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Facilities with better scores in this area typically dodged the most severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. This particular nursing home received 5 deficiencies on its inspection report. 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 long-term care grade. Facilities that excel in this category typically are well-staffed and offer extensive hands on care to residents. On top of considering the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents, which is what we like to see. Pneumonia sadly can be a life threatening condition for nursing home patients so we like it when a facility does not take any chances. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

This first-rate facility also excelled in the area of nursing, where it received a grade of A+. Few nursing homes performed better in this area. We analyzed the qualifications of nurses working for the facility, as well as the number of hours the nurses were with residents, in calculating our score in this category. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This nursing home performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a place has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can frequently be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

In the final category we scored, this facility was given a very favorable grade of A- in our short-term care category. With this grade, the nursing home wrapped up a straight A report card. In computing these short-term care ratings, we look at the facility's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The purpose is to devise a barometer for sizing up the rehabilitation services of nursing homes. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last item we assessed in this category is the percentage of residents who were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.