Helia Healthcare of Benton

In addition to being a respectable facility overall, this facility really excelled in the area of inspections, where it received an A+. Few facilities performed better in this area. Perhaps the most critical factor we consider in computing our inspection ratings is deficiencies. These deficiencies can be found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Places with higher scores in this area typically dodged the most severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. Fortunately, although this nursing home had some minor dings on its inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means the inspectors did not deem 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.

One of this nursing home's more respectable category grades came in the area of short-term care. This proved to be its second most respectable category. In that area, we gave this facility a grade of C. In determining our short-term care grades, we look at a nursing home's levels of highly skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists occupational therapists and other highly skilled individuals. This category is typically a fair assessment of a facility's rehabilitation. This nursing home employs both physical therapists and registered nurses. Not all facilities employ these skilled professionals. The final item we looked at in this area is the number of residents who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. This place was respectable in this area with 45.9 percent of its patients returning home.

The third category we graded was long-term care, where this nursing home received a C in this category. Long-term care grades are generally used to measure a nursing home's performance as a traditional nursing home, as opposed to focusing on the skilled nursing services offered by a rehabilitation facility. In addition to assessing the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. Thankfully, this facility administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is a very respectable percentage. This nursing home keeps its patients out of the hospital. While it had 1.97 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, its risk adjusted score was better than most facilities since it had some more complex patients.

This nursing home's weakest area is nursing, which is the final category we scored. It received an F for this area. Even with a few solid scores in other areas, this grade is still disappointing so we felt obligated to draw your attention to it. In determining our nursing grades, we analyze both nursing hours and the skill levels of the nurses. This facility provided just 3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low total compared to most nursing homes. In addition to being below average in nursing hours per resident, this nursing home also had poor scores in the quality-based metrics we looked at in calculating our nursing ratings. We looked at the percent of residents experiencing pressure ulcers and major falls. This place was at approximately 1.5 times the national average in both of these metrics. This is likely a bad sign when you consider that many bed sores and falls are preventable with better nursing care. These scores pulled down this nursing home's nursing rating significantly.