Good Samaritan Society - Decatur County

In addition to performing well in its overall grade, this nursing home performed at an even higher level in the area of inspections. In fact, it received a nearly flawless inspection report this year. As a result, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A-. Our inspection scores are based on items located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that score well in this category tend to have few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these nursing homes should not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. This place was hit with 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered to be major deficiencies. This tells you that the government inspectors didn't deem any of these deficiencies to cause an immediate risk to patient safety or health. Keep in mind that deficiency-free inspection reports are uncommon in this industry.

We also awarded this facility a score of A- for our short-term care score. Our short-term care grades are based in part on a nursing home's quantity of highly-skilled nursing services. This means a wide scope of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, in addition to other types of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. However, according to the information this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last item we assessed in this area is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home.

In addition, this facility also received favorable nursing grades this year. In fact, we awarded them one of our better scores in that area, with a grade of B+. We scrutinized the qualifications of nurses at the facility, as well as the number of hours the nurses were with patients, in calculating our score in this category. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also assessed some nursing quality measures in determining our nursing grades. This facility performed very well in the area of minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

The next category we graded was long-term care, in which this facility was given a grade of C. This proved to be this facility's weakest area. This is nevertheless a middle of the pack score. In the category of long-term care, we look at the amount of services provided by a nursing home, rather than more healthcare-oriented services. Once we looked at the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we next considered the facility's vaccination records. We were concerned by the fact that this facility vaccinated a relatively low 88.63636 percent of its residents for pneumonia. Nevertheless, this place was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.