CHI St. Alexius Health Garrison

With an overall grade this high, it should come as no surprise that this facility performed well in inspections, where it received an A. Inspection ratings weigh a host of factors included in a nursing home's inspection report. One key criteria we consider is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with higher scores in this area tend to have few severe deficiencies. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Adding to its top-shelf assessment, this facility also was awarded a dominant short-term care score, with a grade of A-. Short-term care grades are based on the nursing home's quantity of skilled nursing services. This means a wide range of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. However, according to the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we considered the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home.

Moving on our next area, this facility received an excellent long-term care grade. In fact, it received a grade of A- in that area. Facilities that do well in this category tend to provide patients with better supervision and stay on top of routine healthcare services. After considering the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then looked at the facility's vaccination data. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents for pneumonia, which is much higher than the vast majority of nursing homes. Finally, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

The final category we rated was nursing, where this nursing home was awarded a B+. This wrapped up a first-rate report card. Very few nursing homes received a B+ or higher in every category. Our nursing score includes many components, however, the primary consideration is the number of nurse hours per patient per week. This facility provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures and this place excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place North Dakota in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as by employing a protocol of turning a patient more frequently.