Good Samaritan Home Health Center and Residential

This facility's overall grade was bolstered by the fact that it has received favorable government inspections in recent years. We awarded it one of our better scores in this area, with a B+. This is a notably better grade than the facility's overall grade. Arguably the most critical factor we consider in calculating our inspection ratings is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a facility's inspection reports. Nursing homes with higher grades in this category typically dodged the most severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. Although this facility had some deficiencies on its inspection report, none of them were serious based on CMS' deficiency scale. A couple minor deficiencies should not stop you from considering a nursing home.

One of the other reasons we graded this facility so highly is that it earned a very impressive nursing rating. Nursing turned out to be its second best category grade. In that category, we awarded this nursing home an B. Our nursing score looks at the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. We consider both the levels of licensure of the nurses as well as the amount of time spent with residents. This nursing home provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also looked at some nursing quality-based metrics in determining our nursing grades. This facility performed very well when it comes to avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

The next most favorable area we gave this nursing home in any area came in the category of short-term care, where we gave it a C. Short-term care grades are vital for prospective residents requiring rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually requires more highly-skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes a wide scope of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. In this nursing home's case, we were surprised to learn that it actually provides less registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than the typical facility. The hope is always that this does not adversely affect the quality of care. Finally, we considered the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 4.1 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most nursing homes, closer to half of their patients are able to return home so this figure is below average.

The final area we looked at is long-term care, proved to be this facility's weakest category. We awarded this nursing home a D in that category. For long-term care residents, the facility's primary goal is to keep patients healthy and safe. This is different than skilled nursing or short-term care where the goal is to rehabilitate patients. One of the criteria we considered in addition to nurse's aid hours is vaccines. Fortunately, this facility provided the pneumonia vaccination to 96.59574 percent of its residents. To our surprise, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. With just 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this nursing home has less hospitalizations than many nursing homes. Unfortunately, a few of its other scores in the category were not as favorable as these.