Dakota Alpha

To pair with its strong overall grade, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A+ for its nursing grade. When facilities receive this kind of grade in this category it is typically a good sign for resident care and indicates that the place is well-staffed with nurses aids. Once we finished looking at the volume of care provided by nurses, we then looked at the facility's vaccination record. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents for pneumonia, which is very impressive. Pneumonia sadly is often a life threatening condition for nursing home patients so we strongly prefer when a facility doesn't leave this to chance. Finally, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. It had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

One of the other reasons we graded this facility so highly is that it earned a very impressive nursing score. Nursing proved to be its second best category grade. In that category, we gave this facility a grade of A+. We assessed the licensure of nurses at the nursing home, as well as the number of hours those nurses worked with patients, in computing our grade in this category. This particular nursing home provided 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 place 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 often be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

This nursing home also earned a nearly flawless inspection report. As a result, it received one of our highest scores in that area with an impressive grade of A+. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in computing our inspection ratings. One of those factors is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of the deficiencies is usually more important than the number of deficiencies, as some of these end up being quite insignificant. Although this nursing home had some deficiencies on its government inspection report, none of them were serious based on CMS' deficiency scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

In the final category, this facility also was awarded an excellent short-term care rating, with a grade of A. This rounded out a first-rate report card. Short-term care ratings are important for individuals in need of rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally mandates additional highly-skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing means a broad spectrum of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. However, according to the data they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we assessed the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home.