House of the Good Shepherd

To go along with its strong overall grade, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A+ for our inspections rating. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in computing these inspection ratings. One of those factors is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of deficiencies is arguably more important than the quantity of deficiencies, as some can be quite insignificant. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

We also wanted to point out the fact that this nursing home excelled in our short-term care rating. We awarded them an elite grade of A+ in this area. Short-term care grades are often used to judge a facility's rehabilitation services. In order to offer highly scored rehabilitation services, facilities generally must provide higher levels of highly skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, respiratory therapists and other licensed professionals. We were pleased to find that this nursing home employs both registered nurses and physical therapists. The same can't be said for all nursing homes. The final statistic we assessed in this area is the percentage of residents who eventually returned home from the nursing home. We found that 6.6 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

This first-rate facility also excelled in the area of nursing, where it received a grade of A+. Few nursing homes performed better in this area. In calculating our nursing ratings, we factor in both nursing hours and the levels of licensure of the nurses. This particular nursing home provided 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality measures 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 facility the state in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as by having a protocol of turning a resident more often.

Turning to the final area, this nursing home was given a strong long-term care grade. We awarded it a grade of A- in that area, giving this facility straight A's. For prospective residents seeking a permanent residence rather than skilled nursing, long-term care grades are a key measure. Once we assessed the volume of care provided by nurses and other staff, we turned to the facility's vaccination statistics. This nursing home vaccinated 85.50725 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which happens to be a bit below what we were hoping for but still a decent figure. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.