Good Samaritan Society - West Union

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a great nursing home is that it received an A+ inspection grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this critical area. Perhaps the most significant factor we look at in calculating our inspection scores is deficiencies. Deficiencies are found on a nursing home's inspection reports. Nursing homes with better grades in this area typically dodged the more severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. Fortunately, although this place had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are found in categories G through L. This tells you CMS did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Remember that deficiency-free inspection reports are uncommon in the industry.

This facility also excelled in the area of nursing, where it received a grade of A. Few nursing homes performed better in this area. Our nursing grade is largely associated with the facility's level of nurse staffing. 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 facility excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place the country 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 system of moving a patient even once per day.

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 area. Our short-term care ratings are important for patients needing rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually requires more skilled nursing services. This includes a broad range of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. However, based on the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last datapoint we looked at in this area is the number of patients who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We discovered that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home.

Turning to the next area, this facility was awarded an excellent long-term care grade. Although this wasn't nearly as strong as many of its other grades, this remains one of the better scores we offer. When nursing homes receive this kind of score in this category it is typically a good sign for patient care and indicates that the place is well-staffed with nurses and aids. In addition to looking at the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home provided the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is much higher than the average nursing home. Finally, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.