Good Samaritan Society - Jackson

We also found that this nursing home excelled in our long-term care rating. We gave them a grade of A+ in this area. Nursing homes that excel in long-term care typically provide patients with more supervision and stay on top of routine medical care. After assessing the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination statistics. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients against pneumonia. Vaccines are vital to keeping patients out of the hospital. Lastly, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

This facility also received a nearly flawless inspection. As a result, it earned one of our highest scores in that area with a score of A+. This was one of the few places to receive multiple A+ category grades. Perhaps the most important factor we consider in computing our inspection scores is deficiencies. Deficiencies can be found on a facility's inspection reports. Nursing homes with better grades in this area typically dodged the most severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

We also wanted to emphasize the fact that this facility received an impressive grade of A in our nursing category. Our nursing score is based on the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. We factor in both the levels of licensure of those nurses and the quantity of hours spent with patients. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures and this facility excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any facility Minnesota in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as by employing a protocol of turning residents at least once a day.

The next category we analyzed is short-term care. In this category, we awarded this nursing home a strong grade of B. With our short-term care category, we seek to craft a fair gauge for rehabilitation services. In doing so, we look at the facility's offerings of skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as speech therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. However, based on the information they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Finally, we considered the percentage of patients that returned home from this facility. We found that 4.6 percent of this nursing home's residents were able to return home.