Wisconsin Veterans Home at King

One of the many reasons this place turned out to be a great nursing home is it received an A+ inspection grade. This is as good as it gets in this category. Perhaps the most critical factor we look at in determining our inspection scores is deficiencies. These deficiencies can be found on a facility's inspection reports. Nursing homes with higher grades in this category most likely avoided the most severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. This place was assessed 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be severe deficiencies. This indicates that the inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies to create an immediate risk to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

We also awarded this nursing home a grade of A+ for its nursing grade. Nursing ratings are mostly tied to the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality measures 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 state in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as by employing a protocol of moving a resident even once per day.

This facility also was given a impressive long-term care grade. Indeed, this is this nursing home's third most impressive category score. In that area, we awarded this facility a score of A. Nursing homes that excel in long-term care typically provide residents with more supervision and stay on top of routine medical care. Once we finished looking at the amount of nursing care, we next considered the facility's vaccination record. This facility vaccinated 99.6139 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is what we like to see. Pneumonia sadly can be a life threatening health condition for nursing home patients so we like it when a facility doesn't leave its residents vulnerable. Lastly, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

The fourth area we rated is short-term care, where this facility was awarded an A-. This topped off a very strong report card. Very few nursing homes earned an A- or better in all four categories. Short-term care scores are based on the facility's quantity of skilled nursing services. This means a vast spectrum of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, not to mention other variations of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final datapoint we considered in this category is the number of residents that ultimately were able to return home from the facility. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.