Eastern Star Home of South Dakota

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a quality nursing home is that it earned an A+ in our inspections category. This is as good as it gets in this very important category. Inspection grades take several factors into consideration, including deficiencies, substantiated complaints and federal fines. You can learn more about each of these issues by reviewing copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. Unfortunately, we were not able to track down information on deficiency's for this nursing home. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

We also want to alert you to the fact that this facility received a high-end grade of A in our long-term care category. When nursing homes receive a score in this range in this category it typically means it has plenty of staff and is a quality place to live on a permanent basis. Once we looked at the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination records. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its residents for pneumonia, which is significantly higher than the majority of nursing homes. Finally, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

Turning to the third area, this facility also earned a grade of B+ for its short-term care rating. This is a well above average score in this area. In the area of short-term care, we try to assess indicators of a facility's rehabilitation services. We analyze the facility's skilled nursing services, including the ones performed by registered nurses and physical and occupational therapists. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final statistic we looked at in this category is the number of residents that who were able to eventually return home from the facility. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

Moving on to our fourth category, this facility was given a strong nursing score. We gave it a B+ in that area, completing one of our more impressive profiles. Our nursing grade is based on a number of data points. The most heavily weighted variable is the number of hours nurses spend with patients. This facility provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also factored a few quality-based metrics into our nursing grades. This place was relatively weak in two of the major areas we focus on, with below average scores for minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. These areas are generally reliable indicators of the quality of nursing care provided.