Heritage Hall Big Stone Gap

Although we didn't grade this nursing home favorably overall, we actually gave it an excellent score in the category of inspections, where it received a grade of A-. Inspection ratings weigh a host of factors included in a facility's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we consider is the number and severity of deficiencies. You generally want to avoid places with a bunch of severe deficiencies flagged. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Even with this deficiency, this place still had a relatively positive report.

We also want to point out that this facility received a decent grade in our nursing category. We awarded it a grade of C in the area. Nursing ratings are largely based on the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident each day. This is a low total compared to most nursing homes. Lastly, our nursing scores also factor in quality-based measures, such as preventing major falls. Despite not having the most impressive total nursing hours per resident, this facility actually performed admirably in the metric of preventing major falls. This is typically a reliable indicator that a place has sufficient quality controls in place. Some falls could be avoided if a nursing home supplies enough nurses aids to assist its patients.

This facility's next most favorable category turned out to be its long-term care grade, where it was given a C. Long-term care grades focus on a nursing home's personal care instead of the highly skilled nursing or healthcare services that are critical to a skilled nursing facility. In addition to looking at the volume of care provided by nurses and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. We were a bit concerned this facility provided the vaccine to only 78.11935 percent of its residents. Nevertheless, this facility excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

The last category we graded is short-term care, in which this facility received a poor score here also. It received a lowly F in this area, which is obviously a major disappointment. In our short-term care rating, we seek to forge a sound gauge for rehabilitation. In this process, we assess the facility's level of highly-skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as speech therapy. With its score in this category, we weren't stunned to learn that this nursing home was well below average in terms of the quantity of physical therapy and registered nurse hours provided to its residents based on the data we assessed. Frankly, this was what we expected to find. Lastly, we assessed the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. This wasn't a strength for this nursing home. We found that just 3.4 percent of this facility's patients returned home. At most nursing homes, around half of their patients are able to return home so this is well below average.