Heart of the Ozarks Healthcare Center

Heart of the Ozarks Healthcare Center is located in Ava, Missouri. This city has a total of 9,403 people. We gave it an overall grade of C, which is a middle of the road score. This facility seems to have some things working in its favor. This facility didn't fare well in all of our categories, but it didn't receive any terrible grades either. Additional information about these categories is available below.

The primary reason this turned out to be a decent nursing home is that it earned an elite inspection score. Its inspection score was far better than its overall score. In the inspections category, we gave this facility a grade of A-. Inspection grades account for several factors found on a facility's inspection report. One key criteria we rely on is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with higher grades in this category typically have few severe deficiencies. Fortunately, although this place had some minor dings on its inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those found in categories G through L. This tells you that CMS didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. A few minor deficiencies should not stop you from considering a nursing home.

This facility performed well in nursing. We awarded it an B- for that category, which is one of our highest scores. Our nursing score is largely based on the facility's nurse staffing. This facility provided just 3.2 hours of nursing care per resident daily. This is a relatively low total compared with most other nursing homes. Lastly, despite not having the most impressive total nursing hours per resident, this nursing home performed admirably in the metric of preventing major falls. This is often a good indicator that a facility has sufficient quality controls in place.

The next area we graded was short-term care. In that category, we awarded this nursing home a decent grade of C. In the category of short-term care, we try to qualify indicators of a nursing home's rehabilitation. We assess the facility's skilled nursing services, including the ones performed by registered nurses and various therapists. Unfortunately, we found that this place provided fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than most other nursing homes. The tricky part is determining what bearing this had on quality of care. The last datapoint we assessed in this area is the percentage of residents that ultimately returned home from the nursing home. We found that just 33.5 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home.

Switching gears to the last area, we awarded this nursing home a grade of D for the area of long-term care. This was the facility's least impressive category grade. If you are seeking anything other than short-term rehabilitation, you should take a close look at long-term care scores. Once we looked at the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then looked at the facility's vaccination data. We were optimistic to discover that this facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients for pneumonia. Lastly, we looked at its number of hospitalizations. With 1.76 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this nursing home did not fare quite as well.