Mercy Health Services- Iowa Corp

We also found that this facility excelled in our short-term care rating. We gave them an A+ in this area. In our short-term care assessment, we attempt to craft a sound gauge for rehabilitation. In this process, we assess a nursing home's level of highly-skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as respiratory therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not all facilities employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we assessed the percentage of residents who returned home from this facility. We found that 6.8 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

This facility also earned an A+ inspection score, making it one of the few places to receive multiple A+'s in our category grades. This is based on the place's recent inspections. Perhaps the most critical factor we look at in computing our inspection grades is deficiencies. Deficiencies are found on a facility's inspection reports. Facilities with higher scores in this category typically dodged the more severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. This nursing home was assessed 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered severe. This tells you that CMS did not deem any of these deficiencies to cause an immediate threat to resident safety or health. A couple minor deficiencies aren't the end of the world.

We also wanted to emphasize the fact that this facility excelled in our nursing rating. We awarded them an impressive grade of A+ in this category. Our nursing grade is primarily based on the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0.7 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This facility performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a nursing home has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can generally be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

Moving on to the final area, this facility received a decent long-term care score. Even though this isn't as elite as a few of its other category grades, this is still not a major area of concern. With our long-term care score, we assess the sheer quantity of services provided by a nursing home, along with a series of quality metrics. On top of assessing the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. We were not able to locate information on vaccination rates. Finally, this nursing home was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.