Fargo Elim Health Care Center

In addition to being a great overall grade, this facility also received A+ health inspections in recent years. Its inspections were virtually flawless. Our inspection grades are tied to pieces of information found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes that excel in this category have very few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these facilities should not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. Unfortunately, we were not able to locate deficiency data for this nursing home. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This nursing home also was awarded a strong long-term care grade. This actually ended up being this facility's second most impressive category grade. In that category, we gave this facility a score of A-. For residents looking for a permanent residence as opposed to skilled nursing, long-term care grades are a key measure. After we finished assessing the quantity of nursing care, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination record. This facility vaccinated 90.76923 percent of its patients against pneumonia. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Additionally, this facility also was awarded favorable short-term care grades this year. In fact, we awarded them one of our stronger scores in that area, with a score of B+. Our short-term care scores are believed to be more critical for individuals in need of a nursing home for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally requires additional skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes not only nursing, but also physical and occupational therapy, as well as other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final measure we assessed in this category is the number of patients who eventually returned home from the facility. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

The next category we analyzed was nursing, in which this facility received a B. Even though this ended up being its least impressive category score, this is still an above average score. In calculating a facility's nursing grade, we look at the number of hours nurses are with residents and the level of skill of those nurses. This particular nursing home provided 0.6 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also looked at certain nursing quality measures in computing our nursing grades. These include minimizing residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. We look at these metrics as good measures of the quality of nursing care offered, since better care tends to reduce these problems.