Prairie Heights Healthcare

To go along with a strong overall grade, we awarded this place an A+ for inspections. Our inspection scores account for several factors found on a nursing home's inspection reports. One key criteria we rely on is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with better scores in this area generally have very few severe deficiencies. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Even some of the best nursing homes receive an occasional ding on their inspection report.

Among its many high-end grades, this nursing home was given an excellent short-term care grade. In fact, we awarded it a grade of A in this category. With our short-term care score, we attempt to craft a meaningful barometer for rehabilitation. In doing so, we look at the nursing home's offerings of skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as respiratory therapy. We were pleased to find that this nursing home employs both registered nurses and physical therapists. The same can't be said for all nursing homes. Finally, we looked at the percentage of patients who were able to return home from this nursing home. We found that 5.8 percent of this nursing home's residents were able to return home.

In addition, this facility also received favorable nursing grades this year. In fact, we awarded them one of our better scores in that area, with a grade of B. There are a variety of criteria included in this area. Many of these factors relate to levels of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics 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 nursing home the country in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by having a system of moving patients even once per day.

The last area we assessed was long-term care, in which this nursing home received a grade of B. While this ended up being its poorest category rating, this is still a quality score. When facilities receive this kind of score in long-term care it is usually a good sign for patient care and indicates that the facility is well-staffed with nurses and aids. After considering the volume of care provided by nurses, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination data. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its residents against pneumonia, which is what we like to see. Pneumonia can be a dangerous health condition for nursing home residents so we like it when a facility does not leave its residents vulnerable. Finally, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.