E F and Bertha Kruse Memorial Lutheran Village

We would like to point out that this nursing home's inspection grade exceeded its overall score. This facility earned a B+ in this area, which is one of our better grades. These inspection ratings weigh several factors, including deficiencies and federal fines. You can find more information about each of these issues by reviewing copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. While this facility had a few minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means that CMS did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. A couple of minor deficiencies shouldn't lead you to cross a nursing home off your list.

One of this facility's better category scores came in the category of short-term care. This turned out to be its second best category. In that area, we awarded this facility a grade of B-. In calculating our short-term care scores, we look at the nursing home's levels of highly skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists respiratory therapists and other highly trained professionals. This score is often a solid measure of a nursing home's rehabilitation. Unfortunately, we found that this nursing home provided fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other nursing homes. Finally, we considered the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 5.9 percent of this facility's patients returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their residents are able to return home so this figure is below average.

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 C. In calculating our nursing grades, we factor in both the number of hours nurses spend with residents and the training levels of those nurses. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a relatively low total compared to most other facilities. Lastly, nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. Despite not having the highest total nursing hours per resident, this nursing home actually performed admirably in the metric of preventing major falls. This is generally a reliable indicator that a facility has quality controls in place. Many falls can be avoided if a nursing home supplies enough nurses aids to assist its patients.

The final area we rated is long-term care. We gave this facility a grade of C in that area. For residents looking for a permanent place to live as opposed to skilled nursing, long-term care grades are an important measure. In addition to considering the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home administered the vaccine to 93.46405 percent of its residents. This is somewhat below what we expected but still a reasonably acceptable percentage. On a more positive note, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.