Prairie City Rehab & Health Care

While this place's overall score was as bad as it gets, it fared well in the area of inspections. In fact, we awarded it a B for that area, which is one of our better scores. Our inspection ratings weigh several factors found on a nursing home's inspection reports. One key criteria we rely on is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. You should avoid nursing homes with too many severe deficiencies flagged. While this nursing home had some deficiencies on its report, none were severe based on CMS' deficiency scale. A couple minor deficiencies are not necessarily the end of the world.

This facility excelled in nursing, where it earned a grade of C. Few nursing homes fared better in this area. Nursing ratings are largely tied to a facility's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides only 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident each day. This is a somewhat alarming figure which is well below the national average. Finally, we also looked at some nursing quality-based metrics. While this place got dinged a bit for nursing hours per resident, it actually excelled in some of these quality-based measures. With fewer than five percent of its residents experiencing pressure ulcers, it performed well in this metric. This is often a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as by having a system of moving a resident more frequently.

This facility's second least favorable category is short-term care, where it earned just a D in that category. This is a relatively poor score. Our short-term care scores are critical for residents requiring rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually mandates higher levels of skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes a broad scope of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. With its abysmal score in this category, we were not stunned to find this facility provided substantially fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other nursing homes. Lastly, we considered the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this facility. This wasn't a strength for this nursing home. We found that just 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home. At most nursing homes, around half of their patients are able to return home so this is well below average.

The next area we scored is long-term care. This facility was given a rock bottom grade of F in this area. Facilities that receive this kind of grade in this category may not provide the kind of consistent around the clock care that some other facilities provide. On top of looking at the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. Frankly, we were a bit alarmed this nursing home gave the vaccine to just 67.82609 percent of its residents. To our surprise, this place was actually able to limit hospitalizations. With just 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this nursing home has fewer hospitalizations than many nursing homes. This was its best feature in this category.