Good Samaritan Society- Socorro

This nursing home's overall grade was helped by a strong long-term care grade. We awarded them one of our higher scores in that area, with a B+. This is a notably better grade than its overall grade. For prospective patients in need of a permanent place to live as opposed to skilled nursing, long-term care is a very important category. Once we assessed the amount of nursing care, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination records. This nursing home vaccinated 88.88889 percent of its patients for pneumonia. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This nursing home also earned favorable inspections in recent years. We awarded them one of our better scores in that category, with a B. This is better than its overall grade. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in calculating our inspection ratings. One of those factors is deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of the deficiencies is usually more important than the number of deficiencies, as some deficiencies are relatively insignificant. Fortunately, although this nursing home had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means that CMS did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is always a good sign.

We also gave this facility a middle of the road grade in the area of short-term care, where it received a grade of C. In the category of short-term care, we strive to evaluate indicators of a facility's rehabilitation services. We assess a facility's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses and physical therapists. Unfortunately, we found that this nursing home provided fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other facilities. Finally, we assessed the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's patients returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their patients are able to return home so this figure is below average.

The final area we assessed was nursing. This facility was given a C for this area. We assessed the levels of nurses at the nursing home, as well as the quantity of time those nurses spent with residents, in calculating our grade in this area. This nursing home averages just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low figure. Finally, nursing scores also factor in quality-based metrics, such as avoiding major falls. Despite not having the highest total nursing hours per resident, this place actually performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is generally an indicator that a facility has quality controls in place. Some falls could be avoided if a nursing home provides enough nurses to assist its patients.