Perry County Nursing Center

We want to draw your attention to the fact that this facility received a much better grade for nursing than it received overall. In fact, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A-. The nursing score analyzes quite a few factors, however, the primary one is the level of nurse hours per patient per week. This facility provided 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also looked at some nursing quality measures in determining our nursing grades. This nursing home performed very well in terms of minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

This nursing home also received favorable health inspections in recent years. We gave them one of our better scores in that category, with a B. Perhaps the most significant factor we consider in calculating our inspection grades is deficiencies. Deficiencies can be found on a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes with better scores in this category most likely dodged the more severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. Amazingly, this was one of the few nursing homes in the country that had no deficiencies whatsoever on its inspection report. This is very impressive. A deficiency-free inspection report is what we like to see.

This facilities third most favorable area is long-term care. We gave it a grade of B- in this area. This is essentially a middle of the road grade in this area. In our long-term care category, we weigh the sheer quantity of care provided by a facility, along with some qualitative metrics. On top of considering the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. Fortunately, this nursing home gave the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is an above average figure. This facility also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

Our last category is short-term care, where we awarded this nursing home a grade of C in that area. Our short-term care scores are meaningful for prospective residents looking for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually requires more skilled nursing. Skilled nursing means a wide scope of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we considered the percentage of patients who were able to return home from this nursing home. We found that 4.1 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home. This figure was quite a bit below the national average.