Country Hills Post-Acute

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-. Arguably the most important factor we look at in determining our inspection ratings is deficiencies. Deficiencies can be found on a facility's inspection reports. Places with higher scores in this category most likely dodged the more severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. This facility received 6 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be major deficiencies. This indicates that the inspectors didn't consider any of these deficiencies to be an immediate threat to patient health or safety. We should point out that deficiency-free inspection reports are rare in this industry.

This nursing home fared well in the category of long-term care. As a result, we awarded it a grade of A- for that category, which happens to be one of our most favorable grades. Facilities that do well in long-term care tend to provide residents with better supervision and stay on top of routine healthcare services. After assessing the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we turned to the nursing home's vaccination statistics. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is much higher than the average nursing home. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Adding to its profile, this facility also earned a grade of B+ for its nursing rating. This is a well above average score in this category. When computing our nursing ratings, we weigh both the number of hours nurses spend with residents and the levels of licensure of the nurses. 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 facility has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can many times be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

The next area we assessed is short-term care, where this nursing home was awarded a grade of C. Although this wound up being its least impressive category grade, this is nevertheless not a poor grade. Short-term care grades are meaningful for individuals needing rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally requires additional skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing means a vast spectrum of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other types of therapy. It does not appear that this nursing home provided information about its staffing of registered nurses or physical therapists. The last statistic we considered in this area is the number of residents who ultimately returned home from the facility. We found that just 4.6 percent of this facility's residents returned home. This figure was below the national average.