Heartland of Piqua

To go along with its decent overall score, we gave this nursing home an A- for its inspection grade. This is far more impressive than the facility's overall grade. Arguably the most critical factor we consider in computing our inspection grades is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a nursing home's inspection reports. Nursing homes with higher scores in this area typically dodged the most severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. Fortunately, although this place had a few minor dings on its report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are labeled as categories G through L. This means that the inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. A few minor deficiencies shouldn't stop you from considering a nursing home.

We also awarded this facility a middle of the pack score in the area of long-term care, where we awarded it a B-. Long-term care scores are crucial for prospective residents seeking non-healthcare services such as personal care. After considering the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination data. This nursing home vaccinated 99.6063 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is more than the majority of nursing homes. Lastly, this place was also able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0.03 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

The third area we analyzed was short-term care. In that category, we awarded this nursing home a grade of B-. Short-term care grades are based in part on a facility's quantity of skilled skilled healthcare professionals. This includes a wide spectrum of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, in addition to other variations of therapy. In this nursing home's case, we were surprised to learn that it actually provides less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per patient than the typical facility. The last datapoint we assessed in this area is the percentage of patients who ultimately were able to return home from the facility. We found that just 5.7 percent of this facility's patients returned home. Unfortunately, this was below average.

Turning to the next category, this facility received a C in nursing, which is generally a respectable rating. When determining our nursing ratings, we look at both the number of hours nurses spend with residents and the skill levels of those nurses. This nursing home provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a much lower figure than we are used to seeing. Lastly, although this facility got docked a bit for its nursing hours, it actually excelled in a few of our quality measures. With fewer than five percent of its patients experiencing pressure ulcers, it performed very well in this subcategory.