Lutheran Care Center

In addition to receiving a great overall grade, this facility also earned an excellent long-term care grade, with an impressive grade of A. When nursing homes receive this type of score in this category it is a good sign for resident care and indicates that the place is well-staffed with nurses aids. After looking at the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination record. This nursing home vaccinated 99.45355 percent of its patients against pneumonia. Vaccines are vital to keeping residents healthy. Finally, this place 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 figure.

Turning to inspections, this facility excelled in that area, which is based on the facility's recent government inspections. We awarded it an A for that category. Inspection grades weigh several factors, including deficiencies and substantiated complaints. You can learn more about each of these factors by reviewing copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. Although this place had some deficiencies on its inspection report, none were major deficiencies based on CMS' deficiency scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Adding to its strong resume, this facility also received an excellent nursing score, with a grade of A. When determining our nursing grades, we look at both staffing levels and the skill levels of the nurses. This nursing home provides 0.4 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 country in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as by having a policy of moving a patient more often.

The next category we analyzed was short-term care. This nursing home received a favorable nursing grade this year, with a grade of B. While this isn't as strong as many of its other category grades, this is nevertheless one of our more favorable grades in that category. Short-term care grades are important for prospective residents needing rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically utilizes more highly-skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes a broad range of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the information they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last item we looked at in this area is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the facility and return home. We found that 4.6 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home.