Luther Home

This facility received a solid overall grade as described above, but we really wanted to point out its excellent government inspections in recent years. We gave them an A- in this category. Our inspection ratings weigh several factors found on a facility's inspection report. One key criteria we weigh heavily is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Nursing homes with better scores in this category usually have very few severe deficiencies. This facility received 2 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe deficiencies. This indicates that the government inspectors didn't consider any of these deficiencies an immediate risk to resident health or safety. A couple minor deficiencies should not lead you to cross a nursing home off your list.

This facility was given its next best category score in the category of short-term care. We awarded this nursing home a B- in this category, which is a reasonably acceptable grade. Our short-term care grades are important for people seeking rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally mandates more skilled nursing. Skilled nursing means a broad range of services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. Unfortunately, we found that this facility provided fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than most other facilities. The more important thing is determining what effect this had on the quality of care. The final measure we assessed in this area is the number of patients who who were able to eventually return home from the facility. We found that just 5.4 percent of this facility's patients returned home. This figure was below average.

One of this facility's better category grades was in the area of nursing care. In that area, we gave this facility a grade of B-. Our nursing rating is mostly based on a nursing home's nurse staffing. This facility provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a much lower figure than we are used to seeing. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics. While this nursing home got docked a bit for its nursing hours, it excelled in some of these quality measures. With fewer than five percent of its residents suffering from pressure ulcers, it performed remarkably well in this statistic. This is generally an indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by employing a policy of turning a resident more often.

The final area we rated is long-term care, which ended up being a low point for this facility. We gave this nursing home a grade of just D in the area of long-term care. For long-term care residents, the primary goal is to maintain residents' quality of life and keep them safe. After assessing the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then looked at the facility's vaccination record. We were pleased to discover that this nursing home vaccinated 99.11894 percent of its patients against pneumonia. Surprisingly, this place also fared well at keeping its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days. Unfortunately, a few of its other scores in the category were not as favorable as these.