Diversicare of St Joseph

We want to draw your attention to the fact that this nursing home outperformed its overall grade in the category of inspections. In fact, it received a nearly flawless inspection report this year. As a result, we gave it one of our highest scores in that category with an A. Inspection grades weigh several factors included in a facility's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we weigh heavily is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better grades in this category usually have very few of these severe deficiencies. Although this place had a few deficiencies on its report, none of them were serious based on CMS' deficiency scale. A few relatively minor deficiencies aren't the end of the world.

This facilities next best area was long-term care. We gave it a grade of B- in this area. This is basically a slightly below average score in this area. For long-term care residents, the facility's primary goal is to keep patients as healthy and safe as possible. This is different than skilled nursing or short-term care where the goal is to rehabilitate patients. In addition to looking at the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home administered the vaccine to 96.54088 percent of its patients, which is higher than most nursing homes. Lastly, this nursing home was also able to limit hospitalizations. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

One of this facility's better category grades was in the area of nursing care. In that area, we gave this facility a grade of B-. Our nursing category weighs several components, many of which are associated with quantities of nurse staffing. This nursing home provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident on a daily basis. This figure is far below average. Finally, we also assessed some nursing quality measures. Although this place got docked a bit for nursing hours, it excelled in a few of these quality-based metrics. With less than five percent of its residents experiencing pressure ulcers, it performed remarkably well in this metric. This is typically a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by having a system of turning patients more often.

Switching gears to our last area, this nursing home was awarded an acceptable short-term care score of C. In crafting our short-term care scores, we quantify the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. Our purpose is to devise a barometer for sizing up the rehabilitation services of different facilities. We weren't able to locate information on registered nurse or physical therapy staffing for this nursing home. Lastly, we assessed the percentage of patients that were able to return home from this facility. We found that 4.7 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home. This figure was well below average.