Colonial Manor of Amana

On top of being a great nursing home overall, it also received A+ government inspections in recent years. Its inspections are virtually flawless. Our inspection scores weigh a host of factors found on a facility's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we weigh heavily is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better scores in this area usually have very few of these severe deficiencies. This place received 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but fortunately none were considered to be severe deficiencies. This indicates that the government inspectors did not consider any of these deficiencies to be an imminent risk to patient health or safety. Keep in mind that deficiency-free inspections are rare in this industry.

Among this nursing home's other strengths is its high-end short-term care score. It received one of our more favorable scores in that area, with a score of A-. Our short-term care ratings are likely most meaningful for patients requiring rehabilitation from their nursing home. Rehabilitation usually mandates higher levels of highly-skilled nursing services. This includes not merely nursing, but also physical and respiratory therapy, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not all facilities employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Finally, we looked at the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home.

Another one of this facility's impressive category grades came in the area of nursing care. We awarded them one of our better scores in that area, with a grade of B+. The nursing grade includes several factors. The most heavily weighted variable is the number of hours nurses spent with residents. This nursing home provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics and this nursing home excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place the nation 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 employing a system of turning a resident even once per day.

Moving on to our last area, this facility was given a respectable long-term care score. Even though this wasn't nearly as elite as many of its other scores, this is still a middle of the pack score. Our long-term care grades are more important for individuals needing more conventional assistance related to activities of daily living. On top of looking at the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients. Finally, this nursing home was also able to limit hospitalizations. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.