Karen Acres Care Center
3605 Elm Drive, Urbandale IA 50322 · (515) 276-4969 · 85.52% estimated occupancy 1Updated: Aug 1, 2020 · By Nick Lata
Karen Acres Care Center is a small nursing home located in Urbandale, Iowa. It looks like this nursing home is among the highest-rated facilities we assessed. A grade of this caliber requires superb scores across the board. We can't find many bad things to say about this place. Its scores are impeccable. Headlining this place's remarkable report card is its long-term care grade, which is addressed in the next paragraph.
Additional Details:
Accepts Medicare 1 :
Accepts Medicaid 1 : 38 Beds
CCRC :
For profit - Corporation
Resident Council:
Family Council:
Medical Staff Hours Per Patient (2019)
Long-term Care Quality
One of the many reasons this turned out to be a great nursing home is that it received an A+ long-term care grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this category. Facilities that excel in long-term care tend to provide patients with closer supervision and stay on top of routine medical care. In addition to assessing the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home provided the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is significantly higher than the majority of nursing homes. The last statistic we assessed was its hospitalization rate. Here we found that this nursing home had 2 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is close to average in this area.
Facility Inspections
This facility also earned an A+ inspection score, making it one of the few nursing homes to receive multiple A+'s in our categories. This score is based on the place's recent inspections. An A+ in this area is one of the biggest complements we can pay to a nursing home. Arguably the most significant factor we look at in determining our inspection grades is deficiencies. Deficiencies can be found on a nursing home's inspection reports. Places with better grades in this category typically dodged the most severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. While this facility had a few deficiencies on its 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.
Nurse Quality
To complement its strong performance in other areas, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A+ for our inspections rating. In computing a nursing home's nursing grade, we assess the amount of time nurses commit to patients as well as the levels of training of the nurses. This particular nursing home provided 3.2 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics and this place excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place the nation in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can typically be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by employing a policy of moving a resident more frequently.
Short-term Care Quality
In our last category, we gave this nursing home an A+ for its short-term care rating. This completed a very favorable profile. Our short-term care grade is often used to grade a nursing home's performance with rehabilitation. In order to offer highly rated rehabilitation services, nursing homes generally need to feature better levels of highly skilled nursing services. These types of services include registered nurses, physical therapists, respiratory therapists and other licensed professionals. One of this nursing home's strengths is registered nurse hours. We found that it offers more care from registered nurses to its residents than most facilities. The final measure we looked at in this category is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the facility and return home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home.
Overall Rating Over Time
Compared to national and state averages across all facilities.
Karen Acres Care Center Quality Metrics
Minimizes Pressure Ulcers
This tells you the percentage of patients who have had a pressure ulcer. Pressure ulcers, which are also called bed sores, are often caused by patients staying in one position for too long. Better nursing protocols can limit the percentage of residents in a nursing home who sustain pressure ulcers.
Percent of Patients with Pressure Ulcers
Lower is Better
Minimizes Serious Falls
This statistic tells you the percentage of long-term patients which suffered a fall resulting in severe injury. Falls can arise for a variety of reasons, but excessive numbers of falls could be a sign of lower levels of patient supervision.
Percent of Patients with Serious Falls
Lower is Better
Minimizes Urinary Tract Infections
This statistic is an indication of the percentage of long-term stay residents who have experienced UTI's. While more of these infections could reflect poorly on a facility's hygiene protocols, it can be difficult to compare different facilities due to varying reporting standards.
Percent of Patients with UTIs
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Psychotic Medication
This figure gauges the percentage of long-term stay residents taking antipsychotic drugs. While antipsychotic medications play an important role in caring for many residents, it is important to make sure these drugs are being used only where medically required. In limited cases, excessive reliance on these medications may indicate a nursing home is using these medications to subdue residents.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Anxiety Medication
This indicates the percentage of patients given antianxiety drugs. Antianxiety drugs are given to patients suffering from anxiety or depression.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Managing Depression Among Residents
This indicates the percent of patients showing depressive symptoms. Higher levels of depression may be an indicator lower quality care.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriate Vaccine Usage
This is the percentage of patients that received the pneumonia and flu vaccines. High vaccination rates should be standard at this point.
Percent of Patients
Higher is Better
Residents Maintain Autonomy
This datapoint measures the percent of long-term stay residents who needed additional assistance with activities of daily living over time. ADL's include activities such as getting dressed and using the bathroom. Some would argue that this is a reasonable measure of a resident's well-being.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Ability to Keep Residents Mobile
This is the percent of residents that were able to retain mobility over time. Optimizing mobility can be a great sign for residents' well-being.
Percentage of Residents
Higher is Better
Hospitalizations
This indicates the number of hospitalizations per 1,000 days of care.
Hospitalizations per 1,000 resident days
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Rehospitalizations
This is a measure of the number of times residents are rehospitalized per thousand days of short-term care.
Percentage of Residents Rehospitalized
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: ER Visits
This tells you the number of times residents are sent to the emergency room per thousand days of short-term patient care. There is a correlation between keeping patients out of the emergency room and the overall quality of rehabilitation.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Facilitates Functional Improvement
This metric is a measure of the percentage of short-term patients that experienced functional improvements, such as with activities of daily living. Some experts believe that this is a reliable measure of a nursing home's rehabilitation performance.
Percentage of Resident
Higher is Better