Paul E Patton Eastern Ky Veterans Center

In addition to receiving a strong overall rating, this nursing home earned an A+ inspection rating. This grade is based on its recent government inspections. An A+ in this area is one of the best complements we can offer a facility. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in computing our inspection scores. One of those factors is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of deficiencies is usually more important than the number of deficiencies, as some are relatively minor. Unfortunately, it does not appear that we were able to find information on deficiency's for this nursing home. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

We also gave this nursing home a score of A+ for its long-term care grade. Facilities that excel in this category tend to be well-staffed and provide extensive hands on care to residents. On top of looking at the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home gave the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is very impressive. Pneumonia sadly is often a life or death health condition for nursing home patients so we prefer when a nursing home doesn't leave its residents vulnerable. Finally, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. It had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

We also awarded this nursing home a grade of A+ for its nursing grade. Our nursing score assesses the facility's nurse staffing levels. We consider both the levels of licensure of the nurses and the quantity of hours spent with residents. This nursing home provides 0.6 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 nursing home has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can many times be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

In the last category we analyzed, this facility received a very favorable grade of A in our short-term care category. With this score, the facility topped off a straight A report card. In calculating these short-term care ratings, we quantify the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. Our goal is to create a scale for comparing the rehabilitation services of different facilities. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the data they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last item we looked at in this category is the percentage of patients that were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.