Good Samaritan Society - Estherville

This nursing home received a strong overall score as described above, but we wanted to emphasize its excellent short-term care score. We gave them an A in this area. In forming these short-term care grades, we quantify the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, speech therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The objective is to create a measure for sizing up the rehabilitation services of different nursing homes. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. However, according to the information they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final item we considered in this category is the number of patients who were able to leave the facility and return home. We discovered that 5.7 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home.

This facility is also strong in the area of nursing, where it received a grade of B+. It outperformed most nursing homes in this category. In determining a nursing home's nursing score, we consider the amount of time nurses are with patients and the level of licensure of the nurses. This facility provided 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also assessed some nursing quality-based metrics in determining our nursing grades. This nursing home performed very well in terms of avoiding major falls and pressure ulcers. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

This nursing home earned a very good government inspection report this year as well. For this reason, it received one of our better grades in that area with a B. Inspection scores weigh a host of factors found on a facility's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we consider is the number and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better scores in this category typically have very few severe deficiencies. Fortunately, although this nursing home had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those found in categories G through L. This means that CMS didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Remember that deficiency-free inspections are uncommon in the industry.

The next area we looked at was long-term care. It received a lowly F for this category, which is an abysmal score. We would not necessarily rule out a nursing home as a result of one concerning score though. If you are seeking services other than short-term rehabilitation, you should take a close look at each nursing home's long-term care scores. Once we finished looking at the amount of nursing care, we turned to the nursing home's vaccination records. We were optimistic to find that this facility vaccinated 99.4186 percent of its patients for pneumonia. Surprisingly, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. With only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this facility has fewer hospitalizations than most nursing homes. Sadly, a few of its other scores in this category were not as favorable as these.