Heritage Hall Clintwood

While we were not very complementary of this facility's overall grade, it received a very impressive inspection report this year. In fact, it received an excellent inspection report this year. As a result, it received one of our best grades in that category with an A. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in determining these inspection grades. One of those factors is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of deficiencies is arguably more meaningful than the number of deficiencies, as some deficiencies end up being quite minor. Although this nursing home had some deficiencies on its government inspection report, none were serious based on CMS' scale. A couple minor deficiencies are not the end of the world.

This facility was awarded its next best category grade in the area of short-term care. We gave this nursing home a grade of B- in this area, which is a respectable grade. Our short-term care grades are based on the nursing home's quantity of skilled highly skilled professionals. This means a broad range of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, not to mention other variations of therapy. Unfortunately, this place was below average in terms of its level of physical therapy and registered nurse hours provided to its residents based on the metrics we assessed. The last item we considered in this category is the percentage of residents that ultimately were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that just 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home.

The next category we assessed is long-term care. This facility's was given a low-end long-term care grade where it received a lowly F. In a long-term care environment, the facility's primary objective is to maintain residents' quality of life and keep them safe. After we finished assessing the volume of care provided by nurses, we next considered the facility's vaccination data. We were pleased to learn that this nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients against pneumonia. To our surprise, this place also keeps its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days. Sadly, some of its other scores in the category were not as favorable as these.

The final category we graded is nursing, in which this facility received a poor score here also. Sadly, it received an F for this area, which is obviously a major concern. In computing a nursing home's nursing grade, we look at the quantity of hours nurses are with residents and the level of skill of the nurses. This facility offered a meager 0.3 hours of nursing care per patient each day. This is an alarmingly low total. Lastly, we also assessed some nursing quality measures in calculating our nursing ratings. This facility fared well in the area of avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these data points to be good measures of the quality of nursing care.