Benedictine Health Center

With an address in Duluth, Minnesota, Benedictine Health Center is one of eight available facilities in the city. This facility was given an A- overall, which is one of our higher ratings. In fact, we were so impressed with this nursing home that we ranked it ahead of most of the nursing homes in Duluth, which has a strong selection of nursing homes. The best aspect of this nursing home's impressive profile is its short-term care score. short-term care grades are discussed in the next paragraph

In addition to performing well overall, this facility received high marks in the category of short-term care as well. It received our highest grade in that category with an A+. In determining these short-term care grades, we quantify the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, speech therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. The objective is to create a barometer for sizing up the rehabilitation services of various facilities. This facility excelled in the two key staffing areas we looked at. It offered more care from physical therapists and registered nurses than the average nursing home. This is generally an excellent sign. Lastly, we looked at the number of residents who returned home from this facility. In addition to excelling in the area of physical therapy staffing, we found that it fared as well as just about any nursing home in the country in this area with 68.6 percent of its residents returning home.

Adding to this nursing home's impressive resume, we gave this facility an A for inspections. These inspection grades take several factors into consideration, including deficiencies and federal fines. You can learn more about each of these items by reviewing copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. Fortunately, although this place had a few minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means CMS did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. A couple minor dings are not something to panic about.

Adding to its strong resume, this facility also received an excellent nursing score, with a grade of A-. Our nursing rating is largely based on the facility's level of nurse staffing. This place provides an incredible 4.5 hours of nursing care per resident each day. Out of this total, many of those hours were provided by registered nurses, which is one of the most highly trained levels of nurses. On top of providing impressive levels of care, this facility also performed well in several of the quality measures we assessed. For example, in terms of the percentage of its residents suffering falls resulting in major injury, this place performed as well as any facility the country. Preventing major falls is typically a good indicator that a facility has quality controls in place. Major falls can many times be prevented if more nurses and better safety protocols are employed.

The next category we scored is long-term care, in which this nursing home was awarded a grade of C. Although this is its poorest category grade, this is nevertheless not a bad grade. Long-term care grades focus on a nursing home's personal care instead of the skilled nursing or healthcare services that are critical to a skilled nursing facility. After assessing the very respectable amount of nursing hours and other staffing provided by this facility, we next considered the facility's vaccination records. This facility vaccinated 97.718636 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which appears to be higher than the majority of nursing homes. This combination proved to be effective as this place also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had just 1.4 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days.