Lutheran Home of the Good Shepherd

In addition to being an elite facility overall, this facility performed well in our inspections category, where it earned an A+. Few places performed as well in this category. Arguably the most significant factor we look at in computing our inspection scores is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Facilities with higher scores in this area typically avoided the more severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. Fortunately, although this nursing home had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are labeled as categories G through L. This means CMS did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

One of the other reasons we rated this facility so highly is that it earned a very impressive nursing grade. In fact, nursing turned out to be its second best category grade. In that area, we awarded this facility an A. Our nursing rating assesses the facility's level of nurse staffing. We consider both the levels of licensure of those nurses and the number of hours spent with patients. This particular nursing home provided 0.4 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 state 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 by having a system of moving a resident more often.

This nursing home also was awarded a fine long-term care grade. In fact, this turned out to be its third best category grade. In that area, we awarded this facility a grade of A. Nursing homes that do well in long-term care typically are well-staffed and provide extensive hands on care to residents. After assessing the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we then looked at the facility's vaccination statistics. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients against pneumonia. Vaccines are vital to keeping residents healthy. Finally, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

Moving on to the last area, this facility was given a strong short-term care score. We gave it a grade of A- in this area, rounding out a straight A profile. Our short-term care grades are crucial for prospective residents requiring rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically utilizes additional highly-skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing means a broad spectrum of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not all facilities employs these types of nurses. However, based on the data they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final metric we considered 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 patients returned home.