Good Samaritan Society - Waukon

On top of receiving a strong overall rating, this facility received an A+ inspection grade. This is based on the facility's recent inspection reports. An A+ in this category is one of the best complements we can pay to a nursing home. Inspection scores account for several factors found on a facility's inspection reports. One key criteria we rely on is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with higher grades in this category tend to have very few severe deficiencies. Fortunately, although this nursing home had a few minor dings on its report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you that the inspectors didn't 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 an excellent sign.

Adding to its first-rate achievements in other areas, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A- for its long-term care grade. When facilities receive a score in this range in long-term care it generally means it has plenty of staff and is a quality place to live on a permanent basis. In addition to considering the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home vaccinated 99.425285 percent of its patients, which is very impressive. Pneumonia is too frequently a life threatening illness for nursing home patients so we like it when a nursing home does not roll the dice on this issue. Finally, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

Additionally, this nursing home also was given favorable short-term care scores in our assessment. Indeed, we gave it one of our higher scores in that category, with a score of B+. Our short-term care scores are based in part on the facility's quantity of highly-skilled highly skilled professionals. This means a vast scope of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, not to mention other types of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. However, based on the information this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last statistic we assessed in this area is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the nursing home and return home. We discovered that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents were able to return home.

The last area we looked at is nursing, where this facility received a grade of B-. This ended up being this facility's worst category. This is nevertheless not the end of the world. In determining our nursing ratings, we factor in both the number of hours nurses spend with residents and the skill levels of the nurses. This nursing home provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a much lower figure than we are used to seeing. Lastly, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics. While this nursing home got dinged a bit for its nursing hours, it actually excelled in a few of these quality-based metrics. With less than five percent of its patients experiencing pressure ulcers, it performed well in this statistic. This is typically a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as employing a policy of moving a resident more frequently.