Joplin Health and Rehabilitation Center

On top of receiving a great overall score, this nursing home fared even better in our inspections category which is based on the facility's recent government inspections. We gave it an A for that area, which is one of our best grades. Our inspection ratings are tied to several datapoints found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that excel in this category tend to have very few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these nursing homes should not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. While this facility had a few deficiencies on its report, none were severe based on CMS' scale. We should point out that deficiency-free inspection reports are rare in this industry.

This facility fared well in the category of short-term care. Indeed, we awarded it a score of A- for that area, which is one of our most favorable grades. Short-term care ratings are based in part on a nursing home's quantity of skilled highly skilled professionals. This includes a wide range of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, in addition to other types of therapy. Unfortunately, we were not able to find registered nurse or physical therapy staffing data for this facility. The final datapoint we assessed in this area is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return home. We discovered that 6 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home.

This nursing home also was given a strong long-term care score. Indeed, we awarded it an above average score of B+ in this category. Facilities that do well in this category tend to be well-staffed and offer extensive hands on care to residents. Once we looked at the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination statistics. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents for pneumonia. Vaccines are critical to keeping residents out of the hospital. Finally, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. It had only 0.03 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

The final category we analyzed is nursing. This facility received a better than average nursing grade in our assessment, with a B-. Although this is not quite as strong as many of its other grades, this remains a respectable score in this area. When calculating a facility's nursing score, we consider the quantity of hours nurses commit to residents and the levels of training of those nurses. This place averages just 0 hours of nursing care per patient daily, which is a very low figure. Lastly, nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. Despite not having the highest total nursing hours per resident, this nursing home performed admirably in the metric of preventing major falls. This is typically a reliable indicator that a facility has quality controls in place. Many falls can be avoided if a facility provides enough nurses aids to assist its residents.