Emmetsburg Care Center

In addition to being a great facility overall, it also received A+ inspections in recent years. Its inspections are virtually perfect. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in determining our inspection grades. One critical factor is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of the deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the number of deficiencies, as some end up being relatively insignificant. Fortunately, although this facility had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means CMS didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

We also wanted to emphasize the fact that this nursing home was superb in our long-term care rating. We gave them an impressive score of A+ in this area. If you are looking for anything other than rehabilitation, you should take a close look at each facility's long-term care grades. On top of assessing the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility provided the vaccine to 83.193275 percent of its patients, which is a few points less than we anticipated. While its vaccination rate was a bit lower than we had hoped, we were pleased to find nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0.03 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

In addition, this facility received high marks in the area of nursing. As a result, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A+. There are a variety of criteria included in this grade. Many of these subcategories reflect the quantity and quality of nurse staffing. This particular nursing home provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This facility performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a nursing home has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can frequently be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

In the last area, we gave this nursing home a grade of A+ for its short-term care rating. This wrapped up a very favorable profile. Our short-term care grade is commonly employed to measure a nursing home's rehabilitation services. To have good rehabilitation services, facilities generally must feature better levels of highly skilled nursing services. These types of services include registered nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists and other types of therapists. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not all facilities employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final item we considered in this area is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients were able to return home.