River Heights Healthcare Center

River Heights Healthcare Center is a small non-profit nursing home located in Greenville, Mississippi. We gave this facility an overall grade of B+. A score of this caliber requires solid scores in most areas. We were pleased to find out that this was in line with the other facilities in Greenville, which is one of the better cities in Mississippi to find a nursing home. This place was better in some categories than others, but it did not have any weak links in any of the major areas discussed below. More information about these categories can be found below.

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 are tied to several pieces of information found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that score well in this category have few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these places generally do 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 facility so highly is that it was given a favorable long-term care score. Indeed, long-term care is its second most impressive category grade. In that category, we awarded this nursing home a score of A-. Nursing homes that do well in long-term care typically provide patients with better supervision and stay on top of routine medical care. Once we assessed the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination statistics. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents against pneumonia. Vaccines are critical to keeping patients healthy. The last statistic we looked at was the nursing home's hospitalization rate. Although it had 2.12 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, its risk adjusted statistic was close to the middle of the pack since it had more complicated patients.

Additionally, this nursing home also was given favorable short-term care grades this year. Indeed, we gave it one of our more favorable grades in that area, with a score of B. Our short-term care grade is generally used to assess a nursing home's rehabilitation services In order to have quality rehabilitation services, nursing homes generally must have better levels of skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists and other licensed professionals. Fortunately, this nursing home offers both physical therapists and registered nurses. Not all facilities offer both. Lastly, we assessed the number of residents who were able to return home from this facility. It outperformed the majority of nursing homes with 55.3 percent of its patients returning home. This is a better rate than most facilities.

Moving on to the fourth category, this nursing home was awarded an acceptable nursing grade. While this is not nearly as good as a few of its other category grades, this is still not a major area of concern. The nursing category assesses several data points, many of which are based on nursing hours. This nursing home provides 2.9 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a much lower figure than we are used to seeing. Lastly, our nursing ratings also factor in quality-based metrics, such as preventing major falls. Despite not having the most impressive total nursing hours, this place actually performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is generally a reliable indicator that a place has sufficient quality controls in place. Some falls can be avoided if a facility supplies enough nurses aids to assist its patients.