Good Samaritan Society - Waukon

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a quality nursing home is that it received an A+ inspection grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this critical category. Arguably the most important factor we look at in computing our inspection grades is deficiencies. These deficiencies can be found on a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Facilities with better grades in this area typically avoided the most severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. This nursing home was hit with 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none of the deficiencies were considered severe. This means that CMS did not consider any of the deficiencies to pose an immediate risk to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This nursing home also was strong in the category of long-term care, where we gave it a grade of A-. Only a select group of facilities received a better grade in this area. Facilities that do well in this category tend to be well-staffed and provide extensive hands on care to patients. After assessing the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination record. This nursing home vaccinated 98.36066 percent of its residents against pneumonia. Vaccines are vital to keeping patients out of the hospital. Lastly, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Adding to its impressive resume, this nursing home also excelled in our nursing category. In fact, we awarded it a grade of A- for that category. In computing a nursing home's nursing score, we weigh the quantity of hours nurses are caring for residents and the level of skill of those nurses. This nursing home provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics and this place excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any nursing home the nation in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can typically be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as employing a policy of turning a patient more frequently.

Moving on to the next category, this facility also excelled in the short-term care category. In fact, we gave it an A- in this area. This completed a straight A profile. In the area of short-term care, we endeavor to evaluate measures of a nursing home's rehabilitation. We analyze a nursing home's skilled nursing services, including the ones performed by registered nurses and physical therapists. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Lastly, we considered the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home.