Dubuque Specialty Care

Dubuque Specialty Care is just one of 10 options in Dubuque, Iowa. With an overall score of B, this facility is a very good option. Based on our ratings, this facility has quite a bit going for it. We were also pleased to find that this nursing home didn't have any weak links in any of the four major categories. More information about these categories can be found below.

This nursing home received a quality overall score as described above, but we especially want to emphasize its nearly flawless inspections in recent years. We awarded it an impressive grade of A+ in this area. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in computing these inspection grades. One key factor is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of these deficiencies is usually more important than the quantity of deficiencies, as some deficiencies are quite insignificant. This place was hit with 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but fortunately none were considered to be severe. This tells you that the inspectors did not consider any of these deficiencies to create an imminent risk to resident health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Adding to this nursing home's list of strengths, it also was awarded a high-end long-term care score. We gave them a dominant strong of A in this category. When facilities receive this kind of score in this category it is typically a good sign for patient care and suggests that the facility is well-staffed with nurses aids. In addition to assessing the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home administered the vaccine to 94.68599 percent of its patients, which is more than the vast majority of nursing homes. The last datapoint we assessed is the nursing home's hospitalization rate. Here we found that this facility had 2.71 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days.

The next best area we gave this facility in any area came in the area of short-term care, where we gave it a C. Our short-term care scores are arguably most meaningful for residents needing rehabilitation from their nursing home. Rehabilitation typically mandates more skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes not merely nursing services, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other variations of therapy. Fortunately, we found that this nursing home provided respectable levels of physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident. The final statistic we considered in this area is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We discovered that just 36.2 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home, which is actually below average.

Switching gears to the next category, this facility received a grade of C in nursing, which we consider to be a respectable rating. The nursing grade weighs several data points, however, the paramount consideration is the number of nurse hours per patient per week. This facility provided just 3.1 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a relatively low total compared to most other facilities. Lastly, we also baked some quality measures into our nursing ratings. This nursing home was subpar in two of the major metrics we focus on, with below average scores for minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. These areas are often reliable indicators of the quality of nursing care provided.