Good Samaritan Society - Algona

In addition to performing well in its overall score, this nursing home earned even higher grades in long-term care. In fact, it received one of our best scores in that category with a grade of A. Long-term care scores of this caliber generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine medical care. After considering the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination record. This facility vaccinated 99.604744 percent of its residents for pneumonia. Vaccines are vital to keeping residents healthy. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

This facility also excelled in inspections. In fact, we gave it a grade of A for that area. Inspection scores weigh several factors found on a facility's inspection report. One key criteria we weigh heavily is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with better grades in this area typically have few of these severe deficiencies. Although this nursing home had a few deficiencies on its government inspection report, none of them were major deficiencies based on CMS' scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Another one of this facility's impressive category grades came in the area of nursing care. We awarded them one of our better scores in that area, with a grade of B+. Our nursing grade is largely tied to a facility's nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also looked at some nursing quality measures in determining our nursing grades. This place performed very well in terms of avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

This facility's worst area was short-term care, which is the last area we scored. In this area, we awarded this facility a grade of D. We want to to point out this possible weakness, however, you shouldn't over-emphasize a single weak category either. In the category of short-term care, we strive to qualify indicators of a facility's rehabilitation. We analyze the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses and physical therapists. Unfortunately, we found that this nursing home provided fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other facilities. Lastly, we assessed the percentage of residents that eventually returned home from this facility. This facility didn't fare well here either. In fact, we found that just 4.1 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home. This figure was well off the national average.