Good Samaritan Society - Larimore

One of the reasons this turned out to be a great nursing home is that it received a very impressive nursing rating. In that area, we awarded this facility an A-. Our nursing grade weighs quite a few subcategories, but the main consideration is the level of nurse hours spent with patients. This nursing home provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at some nursing quality measures in determining our nursing grades. This facility performed very well when it comes to minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

This nursing home also excelled in the area of inspections. We awarded it an B+ for that category, which is one of our highest grades. This is one of the few nursing homes with an overall grade in this range which received multiple category grades this high. Inspection grades account for a host of factors found on a nursing home's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we weigh heavily is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with higher scores in this area tend to have very few severe deficiencies. This nursing home was assessed 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none of the deficiencies were considered to be major deficiencies. This indicates that the government inspectors did not consider any of these deficiencies to pose an imminent threat to resident health or safety. We should note that deficiency-free inspections are rare in this industry.

This facility is also above average in the area of short-term care, where it was given a grade of B. It performed better than most nursing homes in this category. In the category of short-term care, we attempt to qualify measures of a nursing home's rehabilitation services. We look at the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses and various therapists. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we assessed the number of patients that ultimately returned home from this facility. We found that 4.7 percent of this facility's residents returned home.

The final category we scored is long-term care. We gave this facility a grade of C in that category. In forming these long-term care ratings, we analyze the nursing home's ability to maintain its permanent residents' health and quality of life. After considering the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we then looked at the facility's vaccination data. This facility vaccinated 99.0099 percent of its residents against pneumonia, which is better than most nursing homes. This place keeps its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.