Good Samaritan Society - Atkinson

In addition to its strong overall grade, we gave this facility an A for our long-term care rating. In a long-term care setting, the primary goal is to maintain residents' quality of life and keep them safe. On top of assessing the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home vaccinated 71.929825 percent of its patients. This is a bit below what we expected but still a reasonably acceptable figure. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. It had only 0.02 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

Adding to this nursing home's impressive resume, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A- for our inspections rating. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in calculating our inspection scores. One key factor is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of the deficiencies is usually more important than the number of deficiencies, as some of these can be relatively minor. This nursing home received 6 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered severe. This indicates that CMS didn't deem any of these deficiencies to create an immediate risk to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This facility also was awarded a impressive short-term care score. This actually ended up being its third best category grade. In that category, we awarded this facility a grade of A-. In computing these short-term care ratings, we look at the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The objective is to devise a scale for sizing up the rehabilitation services of various facilities. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last datapoint we assessed in this category is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the facility and return home. We discovered that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

The last area we scored is nursing, where this facility was awarded a grade of A-. This completed a very impressive profile. Very few nursing homes earned an A- or better in all four categories. Our nursing score weighs several components, many of which are based on nursing hours. This facility provided 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This nursing home 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 often be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.