Clay Center Presbyterian Manor

We also wanted to emphasize the fact that this facility excelled in our nursing rating. We awarded them an impressive grade of A+ in this category. Our nursing score weighs a handful of factors, most of which are tied to nursing hours. This nursing home averages 0.5 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 facility 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 employing a protocol of moving a patient even once per day.

This facility also received a top-shelf long-term care grade. This actually turned out to be this facility's second strongest category score. In that category, we gave this facility a score of A. Nursing homes that excel in this category tend to provide patients with more supervision and stay on top of routine medical care. Once we looked at the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we turned to the nursing home's vaccination records. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its residents for pneumonia. Vaccines are critical to keeping patients healthy. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

Another impressive feature of this facility is its inspection grade. In that area, we awarded this facility a grade of A. These inspection scores weigh several factors, including deficiencies and federal fines. You can find more information about each of these items by reviewing copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. 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.

In the final category we graded, this nursing home received a very strong grade of A- in our short-term care category. With this grade, the facility finished off a straight A report card. Short-term care grades are typically used to grade a nursing home's rehabilitation services. To have highly scored rehabilitation services, nursing homes generally must feature better levels of skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists and other types of therapists. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last measure we looked at in this category is the number of residents that who were able to eventually return home from the facility. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.