Owsley County Health Care Center

On top of earning a great overall grade, this nursing home performed even better in our inspections category which is associated with the nursing home's recent inspection reports. In fact, we gave it an A+ for this area, which is one of our best grades. Inspection grades take several factors into consideration, including deficiencies and substantiated complaints. You can find more information about each of these factors by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. While this place had a few deficiencies on its government inspection report, none were serious based on CMS' deficiency scale. The fact that the deficiencies were relatively minor leaves us less concerned with this inspection report.

Another strong feature for this facility is that it received an above average long-term care score. Indeed, this turned out to be its second best category score. In this category, we awarded this facility a B+. Facilities that do well in long-term care typically provide patients with more supervision and stay on top of routine healthcare services. In addition to looking at the volume of care provided by nurses and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home administered the vaccine to 99.29329 percent of its patients, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia sadly is often a deadly ailment for nursing home patients so we prefer when a nursing home does not leave its residents vulnerable. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. It had only 0.02 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

Adding to its profile, this facility also earned a grade of B for its nursing rating. This is a well above average score in this category. We assessed the skill-level of nurses employed by the facility, in addition to the quantity of time those nurses were with residents, in calculating our rating in this area. This nursing home averages 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This facility performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a facility has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can frequently be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

The final category we analyzed was short-term care. This nursing home received a C in this area. Our short-term care grades are important for residents looking for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically mandates more skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes a vast spectrum of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last metric we looked at in this area is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the facility and return home. We discovered that just 3.1 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home, which is below average.