Good Samaritan Society - Newell

One of the reasons this place received a great overall grade is that it received a very impressive nursing rating. In fact, nursing turned out to be its best category. In that area, we awarded this facility an A. Our nursing grade focuses on the nursing home's nurse staffing levels. We weigh both the levels of skill of the nurses and the number of hours spent with residents. This nursing home provides 0 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also assessed some nursing quality-based metrics 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.

One of the other reasons we rated this facility so highly is that it received a dominant short-term care score. Indeed, short-term care is its second most favorable category score. In that category, we gave this facility a score of A-. Our short-term care grade is generally used to assess a facility's rehabilitation services. In order to provide good rehabilitation services, facilities generally need to provide higher levels of skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists and other highly skilled individuals. We were not able to locate information about this nursing home's registered nurse or physical therapy staffing. The last statistic we considered in this area is the percentage of residents that ultimately returned home from the nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

This facility was given a favorable long-term care score as well. We awarded it one of our better grades in that category with a grade of B. Long-term care grades of this caliber generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine healthcare services. On top of assessing the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility provided the vaccine to 95.454544 percent of its patients, which is what we like to see. Pneumonia sadly is often a dangerous condition for nursing home residents so we like it when a nursing home doesn't take any chances. Finally, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

Turning to the final category we assessed, this nursing home earned a decent score in inspections as well. We gave it a score of B for that category. This facility didn't have any major weak links. Inspection grades take several factors into consideration, including deficiencies and federal fines. You can find more information about each of these items by reviewing copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. While this facility had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones labeled as categories G through L. This tells you that the government inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.