Boundary Waters Care Center

On top of performing well in its overall score, this nursing home received a strong nursing score. In fact, we awarded it an A in that category. When computing our nursing ratings, we look at both nursing hours and the training levels of the nurses. This facility provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also assessed some nursing quality-based metrics in determining our nursing grades. This nursing home performed very well in the area of avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

This facility also was given a dominant long-term care grade. Indeed, this turned out to be this nursing home's second best category score. In that area, we gave this facility a score of A-. For long-term care residents, the primary objective is to maintain residents' quality of life and keep them safe. In addition to assessing the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 73.78641 percent of its residents. This is a few points less than we were hoping for. While its vaccination rate was a bit lower than we like to see, we were pleased to find nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. It had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

Turning to another strength for this nursing home, we gave them one of our stronger scores in our short-term care category as well, with a grade of B+. In computing our short-term care scores, we look at the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. Our goal is to devise a scale for comparing the rehabilitation services of different facilities. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the data they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final measure we considered in this category is the number of residents who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We found that 0 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home.

Moving on to our inspection category, it appears this facility has received quality inspections in recent years as well. We gave it a score of B in this category. Arguably the most critical factor we look at in computing our inspection grades is deficiencies. Deficiencies can be found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Places with higher grades in this area typically dodged the most severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. Although this place had a few deficiencies on its inspection report, none were severe based on CMS' deficiency scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.