Lutheran Senior Services at Meramec Bluffs

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a great nursing home is it received an A+ in our inspections category. This is simply as good as it gets in this category. These inspection ratings weigh several factors, including deficiencies and substantiated complaints. You can learn more about each of these factors by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. While this nursing home had a few minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means the government inspectors didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Keep in mind that deficiency-free inspections are rare in this industry.

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. Our nursing score is largely associated with a facility's nurse staffing. This facility provides an incredible 7.2 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Out of that total, many of the hours were provided by registered nurses, which is one of the more highly trained levels of nurses. On top of providing impressive levels of nursing care, this facility also performed well in some of the quality-based metrics we looked at. By way of illustration, in terms of the number of its patients suffering from pressure ulcers, this place performed better than the national average. This is typically a good indicator that a nursing home has reliable quality controls in place. Pressure ulcers can typically be prevented with better nursing care and a policy of regularly moving patients to prevent bed sores.

Moving on our next area, we awarded this facility a score of A for its short-term care grade. This is a superb score. Our short-term care ratings are vital for people seeking rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically mandates additional skilled nursing. This includes a vast scope of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other types of therapy. This facility excelled in the two key staffing areas we looked at. In fact, it supplied more care from physical therapists and registered nurses than the average facility. Finally, we looked at the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that it outperformed the vast majority of facilities in the country in this area with 56.9 percent of its residents returning home.

In our final category, this facility also was given an excellent long-term care rating, with a grade of B+. This completed a very strong report card. When facilities receive this type of score in this category it is typically a good sign for resident care and suggests that the nursing home is well-staffed with nurses aids. After considering the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we turned to the facility's vaccination data. This nursing home vaccinated 96.59091 percent of its residents against pneumonia. Vaccines are critical to keeping patients out of the hospital. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.