Pocahontas Center

This nursing home received a solid overall grade as described above, but we really wanted to emphasize its excellent government inspections in recent years. We gave them an impressive grade of A in this category. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in determining these inspection scores. One critical factor is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of the deficiencies is arguably more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some deficiencies are quite insignificant. This nursing home was assessed 5 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none of the deficiencies were considered to be major deficiencies. This indicates that CMS didn't deem any of these deficiencies to be an imminent threat to resident health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This facility also performed well in the area of long-term care. In fact, we gave it a score of A- in that category, which happens to be one of our highest grades. When facilities receive this type of grade in this category it is typically a good sign for resident care and indicates that the place is well-staffed with nurses aids. On top of assessing the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home provided the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is much higher than the average nursing home. Lastly, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

This nursing home's next best category was nursing. We awarded it a grade of C in this category. This is basically a middle of the road grade in this category. In determining our nursing ratings, we assess both nursing hours and the levels of licensure of the nurses. This place provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per patient on a daily basis. This is a relatively low total compared with most facilities. Lastly, despite not having the highest total nursing hours per resident, this facility actually performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is typically a good indicator that a facility has quality controls in place.

Turning to our fourth area, this facility really did not fare well. With an abysmal grade of F in short-term care, this is this nursing home's poorest category grade. In our short-term care assessment, we attempt to craft a sound gauge for rehabilitation. In this process, we assess the nursing home's levels of highly-skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as speech therapy. It appears that this facility was subpar in terms of its quantity of physical therapy and registered nurse hours offered to its patients based on the measures we considered. The final datapoint we considered in this area is the number of patients who were able to return home from the facility. This facility struggled quite a bit in this area as well, with just 3.3 percent of its residents returning home.