Woodruff County Health Center

The primary reason this ended up being a decent nursing home is that it received an excellent inspection score. Its inspection score was far superior to its overall score. In our inspections category, we gave this facility an A-. Our inspection scores are based on several pieces of information found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that excel in this area tend to have few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these facilities generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. 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. Even some of the best nursing homes receive an occasional ding on their inspection report.

This nursing home also fared well in the area of long-term care. For this reason, we awarded it a grade of A- for that area, which is one of our best grades. When nursing homes receive this kind of score in this category it is usually a good sign for patient care and indicates that the place is well-staffed with nurses and aids. On top of looking at the volume of care provided by nurses and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home gave the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients. Vaccines are critical to keeping patients healthy. Lastly, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

This facility's next best category grade came in the area of nursing. In that category, we gave this nursing home a grade of C. Nursing ratings are heavily correlated with quality and quantity of nursing care. This facility provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident daily. This is a much lower figure than we were hoping for. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics. While this facility got dinged a bit for nursing hours per resident, it excelled in a few of these quality-based measures. With fewer than five percent of its patients suffering from pressure ulcers, it performed well in this statistic. This is typically a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as employing a protocol of turning patients more often.

Switching gears to the final area, we awarded this facility a D in short-term care. This is the nursing home's worst category grade. Naturally, this category pulled down the facility's overall grade to a certain degree. Our short-term care ratings are based in part on the nursing home's quantity of skilled nursing services. This includes a vast range of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, in addition to other types of therapy. In this nursing home's case, we found that it provides less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than the average facility. Finally, we considered the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. This definitely was not a strength for this nursing home. We found that just 4.1 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most nursing homes, around half of their patients are able to return home so this is well below average.