Good Samaritan Society--White Acres

On top of being a strong facility overall, this nursing home especially excelled in the area of inspections, where it received a grade of A. Not many nursing homes fared better in this category. Inspection ratings account for a host of factors included in a nursing home's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we look at is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with higher grades in this category usually have very few severe deficiencies. While this facility had a few deficiencies on its government inspection report, none were severe based on CMS' scale. The fact that none of the deficiencies were severe made us feel better about this inspection report.

Adding to this nursing home's list of strengths, it also received a high-end short-term care score. We awarded them a dominant grade of A in this category. In crafting these short-term care scores, we look at the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. Our purpose is to formulate a scale for sizing up the rehabilitation services of various nursing homes. Unfortunately, we weren't able to track down information about this nursing home's registered nurse or physical therapy staffing. The final item we looked at in this area is the percentage of patients who ultimately were able to return home from the facility. We found that 6.6 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

This facility's next best category was its nursing grade, where it received a grade of B-. While this didn't quite match its scores in some of the categories discussed above, this is still a decent score. Our nursing rating features a variety of subcategories. The most important one is the quantity of hours nurses spent with residents. This facility provides only 0.3 hours of nursing care per patient per day. This is a somewhat alarming figure as it is well below average. Lastly, we also assessed some nursing quality measures. Although this place got dinged a bit for its nursing hours, it excelled in a few of these quality metrics. With fewer than five percent of its residents experiencing pressure ulcers, it did well in this metric. This is often an indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as having a protocol of turning a patient even once per day.

The final area we scored was long-term care, which ended up being this nursing home's least impressive category. We gave this facility a grade of D in this area. Sadly, this score pulled down the facility's overall grade to a certain degree. If you are looking for services other than short-term rehabilitation, you should take a close look at each nursing home's long-term care ratings. One of the statistics we considered on top of nurse's aid hours was vaccinations. Fortunately, this nursing home administered the pneumonia vaccine to 100 percent of its residents. Surprisingly, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. With just 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this nursing home has fewer hospitalizations than the average nursing home. Sadly, a few of its other scores in the category were not as favorable as these.