Lakewood Healthcare

Lakewood Healthcare is an average-sized non-profit nursing home located in Hot Springs, Arkansas. We awarded this nursing home an overall grade of B-. A grade of this caliber requires some respectable scores. Based on the data we reviewed, there are definitely much worse facilities out there. The best part of this facility's profile was its exemplary inspection score. Inspection grades are discussed in the next section.

This nursing home received a solid overall grade as described above, but we really wanted to emphasize its excellent health inspection reports in recent years. We awarded them an impressive grade of A in this category. Inspection grades account for several factors included in a facility's inspection reports. One key criteria we rely on is the number and severity of deficiencies. Places with higher scores in this category generally have very few severe deficiencies. While this facility had some deficiencies on its report, none were serious based on CMS' deficiency scale. The fact that none of the deficiencies were severe leaves us less concerned with this inspection report.

Another strength of this nursing home is its elite score in long-term care. We awarded them one of our most impressive scores in that category, with a grade of A-. When facilities receive this kind of grade in this category it is a good sign for patient care and suggests that the facility is well-staffed with nurses and aids. Once we looked at the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination record. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents against pneumonia. Vaccines are vital to keeping patients out of the hospital. Lastly, we looked at the facility's number of hospitalizations. Here we found that this facility had 2.2 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days.

This facility's next best category grade came in the area of nursing. In that category, we gave this nursing home a grade of C. The nursing rating assesses several components, most of which are tied to nursing hours. This place provides 4 hours of nursing care per patient on a daily basis. This is better than average. In calculating our nursing scores, we apply more weight to hours performed by more highly skilled nurses such as registered nurses. Lastly, we also considered quality-based metrics in determining our nursing grades. This facility was above average in several of the major areas we focus on, with good scores for minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls.

Switching gears to the fourth category, we gave this facility a D for short-term care. This was the nursing home's worst category score. Sadly, this grade hurt the facility's overall profile a bit. Short-term care grades are typically used to grade a facility's performance with rehabilitation. In order to provide highly graded rehabilitation services, facilities generally need to have better levels of skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists and other types of therapists. In this place's case, it looks like it offered less registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than the average facility. The final metric we looked at in this area is the number of patients who returned home from the nursing home. This nursing home struggled quite a bit in this area as well, with just 0 percent of its patients returning home. This was well below the national average.