MercyOne Dyersville Medical Center

In addition to receiving a strong overall grade, this nursing home also received an A+ inspection score. This is based on its recent government inspections. An A+ in this area is one of the best complements we can offer a facility. Inspection scores weigh a host of factors included in a facility's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we weigh heavily is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with better grades in this category typically have few of these severe deficiencies. This nursing home was hit with 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be major deficiencies. This indicates that CMS didn't deem any of these deficiencies to create an imminent risk to resident safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This nursing home also received an A+ nursing grade, making it one of the few nursing homes to receive multiple A+ category grades. Nursing grades are largely based on the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This facility provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality measures 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 facility the country in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as by having a system of moving residents more often.

Turning the page to our third category, this high end facility also performed well in the category of long-term care. In this category, it received a grade of A+. Few nursing homes fared better in this category. Nursing homes that do well in this category typically are well-staffed and provide extensive hands on care to residents. In addition to considering the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility provided the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is much higher than most nursing homes. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

The last area we assessed is short-term care, where this facility was given an A-. This rounded out a very impressive profile. Not many nursing homes received an A- or better in all four categories. In computing our short-term care ratings, we assess the nursing home's levels of highly skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists speech therapists and other types of therapists. This score is frequently a reliable measure of a facility's rehabilitation. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not all facilities employs these skilled professionals. However, based on the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final statistic we looked at in this category is the number of residents who eventually returned home from the nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.