Nhc Healthcare, Joplin

Although we did not have many favorable things to say about this nursing home's overall grade, it earned a somewhat respectable government inspection report this year. It received a decent score in this category with a B-. We would argue that one of the most important factors in evaluating an inspection report is deficiencies. In this regard, we especially look at the severity of the deficiencies. This facility was hit with 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe. This tells you that the inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies an imminent threat to resident health or safety. Finally, this facility was cited by CMS for possible abuse or neglect. We would not recommend this facility under any circumstance.

This nursing home actually received a decent grade in the area of nursing as well. We awarded it a grade of B- for that category, which is not a bad score. Nursing scores are mostly tied to a nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a relatively low total compared to most other facilities. Lastly, we also looked at several nursing quality measures. While this nursing home got docked a bit for its nursing hours per resident, it excelled in a few of these quality measures. With fewer than five percent of its residents suffering from pressure ulcers, it fared very well in this metric. This can be a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can typically be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as employing a system of turning a resident more often.

The third area we assessed is short-term care. In that area, we awarded this nursing home a grade of B-. Our short-term care scores are based on a facility's quantity of skilled skilled healthcare professionals. This includes a vast scope of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, in addition to other forms of therapy. We were surprised to find that this facility was below average in the two key staffing areas we focus on. The facility supplied fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other nursing homes. The last datapoint we assessed in this category is the number of patients that who were able to eventually return home from the nursing home. We found that just 4.9 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home. This figure was below the national average.

The next area we looked at is long-term care, which was a weak link for this nursing home. We awarded this facility a grade of D in our long-term care category. Facilities that do not score well in long-term care often don't provide as much nursing care and also may be lagging in some of the areas of routine healthcare services we assessed. In addition to looking at the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. We were a bit concerned this nursing home provided the vaccine to only 76.156586 percent of its patients. Surprisingly, this facility was actually able to limit hospitalizations. With just 0.03 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this facility had fewer hospitalizations than the average nursing home. This was its best feature in this category.