Southeast Iowa Behavioral Health Care Center

To go along with its strong overall grade, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A+ for our inspections rating. Inspection scores weigh a host of 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. Nursing homes with higher grades in this area typically have very few of these severe deficiencies. Fortunately, although this nursing home had a few minor dings on its report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are found in categories G through L. This tells you that the government inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. A few relatively minor deficiencies are not the end of the world.

This nursing home performed well in our nursing category. In fact, we awarded it a grade of A- for that category, which is one of our highest scores. Nursing scores are mostly based on the nursing home's nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics and this facility excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place the nation in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as by employing a protocol of turning a resident even once per day.

This nursing home also received a favorable short-term care score. Indeed, we awarded it an above average grade of B in this area. Our short-term care grades are based in part on a facility's quantity of skilled nursing services. This includes a wide range of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, not to mention other variations of therapy. Unfortunately, it does not look like this nursing home provided information about its staffing of registered nurses or physical therapists. The last statistic we looked at in this category is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the facility and return home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's patients returned home.

The final category we looked at was long-term care, where this facility received a C. Even though this ended up being its weakest category rating, this is nevertheless a middle of the pack score. Our long-term care scores are based on a nursing home's volume of nursing services. This includes a vast spectrum of personal care services, ranging from help with activities of daily living to routine medical services. Once we assessed the volume of care provided by nurses, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination statistics. We were optimistic to discover that this nursing home vaccinates 96.4539 percent of its residents against pneumonia. This nursing home also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.