Pulaski Health Care Center

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a quality nursing home is that it received an A+ inspection grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this critical category. Inspection scores account for a host of factors included in a nursing home's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we look at is the number and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better scores in this category generally have very few of these severe deficiencies. While this place had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you that CMS did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

In addition, this nursing home also was given favorable short-term care scores this year. In fact, we gave it one of our better scores in that area, with a score of B+. Our short-term care ratings are meaningful for residents seeking rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally utilizes additional highly-skilled nursing. This means a wide range of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Finally, we assessed the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 5.1 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

This facility also was awarded a favorable long-term care grade. In fact, we gave it an above average score of B+ in this area. When facilities receive this type of grade in long-term care it is typically a good sign for patient care and suggests that the place is well-staffed with nurses and aids. One of the factors we considered after nursing hours is vaccines. This nursing home administered the pneumonia vaccination to 99.24812 percent of its residents. Vaccination is a reliable method to minimize unnecessary deaths and hospitalizations for the elderly population. Lastly, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

The last area we rated was nursing. In that category, we awarded this facility a decent grade of B-. This was this nursing home's weakest category. In calculating our nursing ratings, we look at both staffing levels and the skill levels of the nurses. This nursing home averages just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low figure. Lastly, we also factored a few quality-based metrics into our nursing ratings. This nursing home was relatively weak in two of the major metrics we focus on, with below average scores for minimizing its patients' major falls and pressure ulcers. These areas are often measures of the quality of nursing care offered.