Quality Life Services - Henry Clay

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 grades account for several factors included in a nursing home's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we weigh heavily is the number and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with higher grades in this area typically have few of these severe deficiencies. Fortunately, although this place had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those found in categories G through L. This tells you the inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

One of the other reasons we graded this facility so highly is that it was awarded a strong long-term care score. Indeed, long-term care turned out to be its second best category score. In that category, we gave this nursing home a score of A-. Facilities that excel in long-term care tend to be well-staffed and provide extensive hands on care to patients. Once we finished looking at the amount of nursing care, we turned to the facility's vaccination statistics. This nursing home vaccinated 96.17021 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia sadly can be a life threatening illness for nursing home patients so we like it when a facility does not leave this to chance. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Another strong feature for this facility is that it received an impressive nursing grade. In that area, we awarded this facility a grade of B+. The nursing rating is based on many datapoints, but the main one is the level of nurse hours per patient per week. This nursing home provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This nursing home performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a facility has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can many times be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

The final category we rated is short-term care, in which this facility was given a C. This actually turned out to be this nursing home's least impressive area. This is still a middle of the pack score. In the area of short-term care, we try to evaluate measures of a facility's rehabilitation services. We assess the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses and physical, occupational and other therapists. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final metric we assessed in this category is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the nursing home and return home. We discovered that just 4.4 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home, which is below average.