Rural Health Care Center

While we were not very complementary of this facility's overall grade, it actually received a very impressive inspection report this year. In fact, it received a nearly flawless inspection report this year. As a result, it received one of our best scores in that category with a grade of A-. Perhaps the most important factor we look at in determining our inspection grades is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a nursing home's recent inspection reports. It is typically in your best interest to avoid facilities that had too many severe deficiencies. This nursing home was assessed 9 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be severe deficiencies. This means that CMS didn't consider any of the deficiencies an imminent threat to patient safety or health. A couple minor deficiencies aren't the end of the world.

Moving on to the category of long-term care, this nursing home received just a D in this area. Sadly, this wound up being one of its better features. Long-term care scores in this range generally are a bad sign for the quantity and quality of care provided by nurses and aids. After looking at the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination records. We were concerned by the fact that this nursing home vaccinated just 29.710144 percent of its residents for pneumonia. Surprisingly, this nursing home was actually able to limit hospitalizations. With just 0.03 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this facility had fewer hospitalizations than the majority of nursing homes. This was its best score in this category.

We gave this nursing home just a D for our short-term care score. This is well below average in this category. Our short-term care ratings are based on a facility's quantity of highly-skilled nursing services. This means a wide spectrum of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, not to mention other forms of therapy. With a grade of this caliber in this category, we weren't stunned to learn this place was below average in two of the key staffing metrics we assess. The facility provided far fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most facilities. Finally, we considered the number of patients who ultimately returned home from this facility. This facility didn't fare well here either. In fact, we found that just 0 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home. This figure was quite a bit off the national average.

Turning to our fourth area, this facility really didn't perform well here either. With a bottom of the barrel grade of F in nursing, this is just about as as uninspiring as it gets. Our nursing score is primarily tied to the nursing home's nurse staffing. This nursing home offered just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed some nursing quality measures in calculating our nursing scores. This nursing home performed well when it comes to avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls. Many consider these data points to be measures of the quality of nursing care.