New Madrid Living Center

In addition to being a great overall grade, this facility also received A+ health inspections in recent years. Its inspections were virtually flawless. Inspection ratings are based on several datapoints located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that receive favorable grades in this area tend to have few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these facilities generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. While this facility had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are labeled as categories G through L. This means the inspectors didn't consider 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.

One of the other reasons we graded this nursing home so favorably is that it was awarded a dominant long-term care grade. Indeed, long-term care ended up being its second best category score. In that area, we awarded this nursing home a score of A. When nursing homes receive a grade in this range in this category it typically means it has plenty of staff and is a quality place to live on a permanent basis. In addition to looking at the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home administered the vaccine to 95.3271 percent of its residents, which is higher than most nursing homes. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. It had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Another strong feature for this facility is that it received an impressive nursing grade. In that area, we awarded this facility a grade of B. In determining our nursing ratings, we look at both staffing levels and the levels of licensure of the nurses. This nursing home averages 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This nursing home performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a place has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can frequently be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

The next category we looked at was short-term care, which was this facility's worst category. We awarded this nursing home a D in this category. However, you should not assess this facility solely on one bad area, since it received multiple very strong grades in other areas. In the category of short-term care, we seek to evaluate measures of a nursing home's rehabilitation services. We look at the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses and physical and occupational therapists. Unfortunately, we learned that this facility offers less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per patient than most nursing homes. The last metric we looked at in this category is the number of residents who were able to return home from the nursing home. This nursing home struggled quite a bit in this metric as well, with just 5.1 percent of its patients returning home.