Mercy Rehab and Care Center

In addition to being a respectable facility overall, this place also excelled in the category of inspections, where it earned a grade of A-. Few nursing homes performed better in this area. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in calculating these inspection grades. One key factor is health deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of these deficiencies is arguably more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some of these end up being quite insignificant. Fortunately, although this place 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 that the inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. A couple of minor deficiencies shouldn't lead you to cross a nursing home off your list.

We also awarded this nursing home a solid grade in the area of long-term care, where it received a grade of B-. For patients seeking a permanent residence as opposed to skilled nursing, long-term care grades are very important. This facility's vaccination data weren't as impressive as its nursing hours data. This facility administered the pneumonia vaccine to just 62.43655 percent of its patients. We'd like to see some improvement in this area in the future. Lastly, we looked at its number of hospitalizations. This facility did not excel here either, with 3.03 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days. While this figure is somewhat concerning, this statistic may be skewed for some facilities due to the medical complexity of patients.

The next category we looked at is short-term care. In that area, we gave this nursing home a grade of B-. Short-term care grades are based on a facility's quantity of skilled nursing services. This means a vast spectrum of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, not to mention other forms of therapy. We were surprised to find that this place was below average in the two key staffing areas we looked at. The facility offered fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than most other facilities. The final item we looked at in this area is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the facility and return home. We found that it was above average in this area with 51.7 percent of its residents returning home.

Our next category is nursing, where we awarded this facility a C in that category. Our nursing rating analyzes the facility's level of nurse staffing. We look at both the levels of skill of the nurses and the amount of time spent with patients. This facility provided 4.7 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is an impressive figure. Lastly, we also factored some quality measures into our nursing grades. Specifically, we looked at the percent of residents who sustained pressure ulcers and major falls. We look at these metrics as predictive measures of the quality of nursing care, since better care tends to reduce these problems.