Hutchinson Regional Medical Center

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a quality nursing home is that it received an A+ inspection grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this critical category. Inspection ratings weigh several factors found on a facility's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we look at is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with higher grades in this area usually have few severe deficiencies. We were not able to find deficiency data for this facility. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Adding to its strong achievements in other areas, we gave this facility a grade of A for its short-term care grade. Our short-term care ratings are crucial for residents seeking rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically mandates more skilled nursing. This means a wide scope of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. Unfortunately, it does not appear that this facility submitted registered nurse or physical therapist staffing data. This facility fared much better in the final metric we considered in this category, which was the number of residents who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We found that it fared as well as just about any facility in Kansas in this metric with 69.9 percent of its residents returning home.

This nursing home also received a strong nursing score. In fact, we awarded it an above average grade of B+ in this area. We scrutinized the levels of nurses at the facility, as well as the number of hours the nurses worked with residents, in determining our grade in this category. This nursing home averages 0 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This nursing home performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a place has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can many times be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

In the last category, we awarded this facility a grade of A+ for its long-term care score. This finished off a very strong report card. For prospective patients seeking a permanent residence rather than rehabilitation, long-term care grades are an important measure. One of the factors we considered in addition to nurse's aid hours is vaccines. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that this facility provided information on its vaccination levels. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.