Benedictine Health Center of Minneapolis

In addition to receiving a great overall grade, this facility also received an excellent nursing score, with a grade of A. We assessed the licensure of nurses at the nursing home, as well as the number of hours the nurses spent with patients, in determining our score in this category. This nursing home provides 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This nursing home performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a place has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can generally be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

Adding to this nursing home's impressive resume, we awarded this nursing home an A- for inspections. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in determining these inspection grades. One critical factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of the deficiencies is arguably more important than the number of deficiencies, as some end up being relatively minor. While this nursing home had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G through L. This tells you the government inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. A couple minor dings aren't necessarily the end of the world.

The next category we looked at was short-term care. Adding to its superb resume, this facility also excelled in this category. In fact, it received a grade of of A- for the category. In computing these short-term care grades, we quantify the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The objective is to create a measure for sizing up the rehabilitation services of nursing homes. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the data they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final statistic we looked at in this category is the number of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return home. We discovered that 0 percent of this facility's patients returned home.

The final area we looked at ended up being this nursing home's weakest category. Nevertheless, even its worst category would actually be a highlight for most facilities. We gave it an above average grade of B for long-term care. When nursing homes receive a grade in this range in long-term care it typically means it has plenty of staff and is an overall good place to reside on a permanent basis. After considering the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination statistics. This nursing home vaccinated 94.68439 percent of its patients for pneumonia. Vaccines are critical to keeping residents healthy. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.