Carl M. Brashear Radcliff Veterans Center

In addition to receiving an elite overall rating, this facility received an A+ inspection rating. This is based on the facility's recent government inspections. An A+ in this category is one of the highest complements we can pay to a nursing home. Inspection ratings are based on datapoints found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that excel in this category typically have very few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these places should not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a 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 rated this nursing home so highly is that it earned a very impressive nursing grade. Nursing turned out to be its second best category grade. In that category, we awarded this nursing home an A+. There are a host of factors within this grade. Most of the datapoints reflect nurse staffing. This particular nursing home provided 0.6 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This facility 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 generally be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

Adding to its first-rate resume, this nursing home also was awarded a dominant long-term care grade, with a grade of A. When nursing homes receive this kind of grade in this category it is a good sign for resident care and suggests that the facility is well-staffed with nurses aids. On top of considering the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents, which is an impressive figure. Pneumonia can be a dangerous condition for nursing home residents so we like it when a nursing home doesn't take any chances. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

In the last category, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A+ for our short-term care grade. This rounded out a very favorable report card. In calculating our short-term care ratings, we assess the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, speech therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. Our objective is to formulate a tool for comparing the rehabilitation services of nursing homes. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility 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. The last statistic we looked at in this area is the number of patients who were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.