Karen Acres Care Center

On top of faring well overall, this nursing home earned a nearly flawless inspection report. Consequently, it earned one of our best scores in that category with a grade of A+. Our inspection grades are tied to many pieces of information found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Facilities that score well in this area tend to have very few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these places generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. Fortunately, although this nursing home had a few minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you the government inspectors didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Contributing to its strong resume, this facility also was awarded a strong long-term care grade, with a score of A-. Long-term care ratings of this caliber generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine medical care. In addition to looking at the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility provided the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients, which is much higher than the majority of nursing homes. Finally, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Another one of this facility's impressive category grades came in the area of nursing care. We awarded them one of our better scores in that area, with a grade of B+. Our nursing rating analyzes quite a few subcategories, most of which are associated with quantities of nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 2.6 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality measures and this nursing home excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place Iowa in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can typically be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as by having a system of moving patients more frequently.

In our last area, we gave this nursing home a A+ for our short-term care grade. This completed a very impressive report card. With our short-term care rating, we attempt to create a valuable barometer for rehabilitation services. In this process, we look at a nursing home's levels of skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as speech therapy. When we assessed this facility's nursing hours, we found it offered more care from registered nurses than most nursing homes. The final datapoint we assessed in this category is the number of patients who were able to return home from the facility. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.