Arbor Care Centers – Hartington

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a quality nursing home is that it earned an A+ inspection grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this very important category. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in determining our inspection grades. One key factor is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the number of deficiencies, as some deficiencies end up being quite minor. While this place had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones labeled as categories G through L. This tells you that the government inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Contributing to its high-end profile, this nursing home also performed well in our long-term care area. In fact, we awarded it a score of A for the category. Nursing homes that excel in this category typically provide patients with closer supervision and stay on top of routine healthcare services. On top of considering the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is far higher than the majority of nursing homes. Finally, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

This nursing home also received a very impressive nursing grade. In that area, we awarded this facility a grade of A-. Nursing ratings are heavily correlated with quantity of nursing care available. This nursing home provides 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 facility the nation 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 system of turning a resident at least once a day.

The final area we scored was short-term care, where this nursing home received an A-. This wrapped up a very favorable profile. Only a select few nursing homes received an A- or better in in each area we assessed. Our short-term care grade is typically employed to measure a nursing home's rehabilitation services. In order to offer highly rated rehabilitation services, nursing homes generally must feature better levels of skilled nursing services. These types of services include registered nurses, physical therapists, respiratory therapists and other licensed professionals. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the information they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we assessed the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home.