Mercy Medical Center

We also wanted to point out the fact that this facility earned near flawless inspections in recent years. We gave them an A+ in this category. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in computing these inspection grades. One critical factor is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of the deficiencies is usually more important than the number of deficiencies, as some of these end up being quite minor. Amazingly, this was one of the few nursing homes in the country that had no deficiencies whatsoever on its inspection report. This is very impressive. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This facility also was awarded an A+ short-term care grade, making it one of the few facilities to be awarded several A+ category scores. With our short-term care grade, we try to craft a sound measure for rehabilitation services. In doing so, we assess the nursing home's level of skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as respiratory therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not all facilities employs these types of nurses. However, based on the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Finally, we considered the percentage of patients that ultimately were able to return home from this facility. We found that 7.2 percent of this nursing home's residents were able to return home.

This nursing home also received a first-rate long-term care grade. In fact, this ended up being this nursing home's third best category score. In that area, this facility received a grade of A. Long-term care grades of this caliber generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine medical care. After looking at the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination record. Unfortunately, we were not able to locate this place's vaccination data. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

In the final category we analyzed, this nursing home was awarded a very strong grade of A- in our nursing category. With this score, the facility finished off a straight A report card. In determining a nursing home's nursing score, we assess the amount of time nurses are caring for residents as well as the level of licensure of those nurses. This facility provided 0.6 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also looked at certain nursing quality-based metrics in computing our nursing grades. These include minimizing residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. We look at these statistics as reliable measures of the caliber of nursing care being provided, since better care tends to reduce these problems.