Bethany Life

To go along with its strong overall grade, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A for our short-term care grade. With our short-term care rating, we attempt to create a sound barometer for rehabilitation services. In doing so, we analyze a nursing home's level of skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as speech therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final datapoint we assessed in this area is the number of patients who ultimately were able to return home from the facility. We found that 5.9 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

This nursing home also excelled in inspections. We awarded it an A- for that area, which is one of our best scores. This is one of the few nursing homes with an overall grade in this range which earned multiple category grades this high. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in determining these inspection ratings. One critical factor is health deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of these deficiencies is arguably more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some can be relatively insignificant. Fortunately, although this place had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones labeled as categories G through L. This tells you that CMS didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. We should point out that deficiency-free inspections are uncommon in this industry.

Adding to its profile, this facility also earned a grade of B for its nursing rating. This is a well above average score in this category. In determining our nursing grades, we weigh both staffing levels and the levels of licensure of the nurses. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures and this place excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place Iowa in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as having a protocol of turning residents more frequently.

The next category we graded is long-term care. In that category, we awarded this facility a C. Our long-term care grade assesses a nursing home's assistance with daily living instead of the highly skilled therapy and healthcare services that are critical to a skilled nursing facility. Once we assessed the volume of nursing care, we next considered the facility's vaccination record. This nursing home vaccinated 91.37577 percent of its residents for pneumonia. Nevertheless, this place was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.