Henry County Healthcare Center

We also wanted to point out that this nursing home has received near flawless government inspections in recent years. We awarded them an impressive grade of A+ in this category. Inspection scores are tied to items located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes that receive favorable grades in this area typically have very few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these nursing homes generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. Although this facility had a few deficiencies on its government inspection report, none were serious based on CMS' scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This nursing home also was superb in the area of short-term care, where we awarded it a score of A-. Very few facilities fared better in this area. In determining our short-term care ratings, we look at the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. The purpose is to devise a measure for comparing the rehabilitation services of various facilities. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the information this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final datapoint we considered in this area is the percentage of patients who ultimately returned home from the nursing home. We found that 6.3 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

This facility is also strong in the area of long-term care, where it received a grade of B+. It outpaced most nursing homes in this area. When nursing homes receive a score in this range in this category it typically means it's well-staffed and is an overall good place to live on a permanent basis. Once we looked at the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination record. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is far higher than most nursing homes. Finally, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

The final area we looked at is nursing. This nursing home received a favorable nursing grade in our assessment, with a grade of B-. While this was not as strong as several of its other scores, this remains a respectable rating for that area. The nursing category includes quite a few components, many of which are based on quantities of nurse staffing. This place provides only 0.4 hours of nursing care per patient per day. This is a somewhat alarming figure as it is well below the national average. Lastly, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based metrics, such as avoiding major falls. Despite not having the highest total nursing hours, this facility performed admirably in the metric of preventing major falls. This is generally a good indicator that a nursing home has quality controls in place. Some falls can be avoided if a nursing home supplies enough nurses aids to assist its patients.