Minnequa Medicenter

Minnequa Medicenter is an average-sized facility located in Pueblo, Colorado. We awarded this nursing home an overall grade of B. A grade of this caliber requires quality marks in most areas. Based on all of the relevant data, you can do much worse than this place. This nursing home is better in some categories than others, but it did not have any bad scores in any of our four major categories. More information about these categories can be found below.

On top of earning a strong overall grade, this facility performed well in our nursing category. In fact, we gave it a grade of A- for that category, which is one of our highest scores. Our nursing score is based on a host of subcategories. The most important variable is the quantity of hours nurses spend with residents. This particular nursing home provided 3.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality measures and this nursing home excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any facility Colorado in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can typically be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as employing a protocol of moving a patient at least once a day.

This facility also was given a favorable short-term care score. In fact, we awarded it an above average grade of B+ in this area. Our short-term care scores are important for prospective residents needing rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually utilizes higher levels of skilled nursing services. This means a vast spectrum of services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. This nursing home employs both physical therapists and registered nurses. Not all facilities employ these skilled professionals. Finally, we looked at the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. This place outperformed the majority of facilities in this area with 52.9 percent of its patients returning home. This is a higher rate than most facilities.

Adding to its strong resume, this facility earned a grade of B for its inspections rating. This is a well above average score in this category. Our inspection ratings are tied to many datapoints located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Facilities that receive favorable grades in this category tend to have few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these places generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Even some of the best nursing homes receive an occasional ding on their inspection report.

Moving on to our next category, this nursing home received a decent long-term care grade of C. Our long-term care grades are more meaningful for folks in need of more conventional services related to personal care. Once we assessed the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we turned to the facility's vaccination records. We were disappointed to learn that this nursing home vaccinated only 89.21283 percent of its patients against pneumonia. On a more positive note, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. With only 1.58 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this facility had fewer hospitalizations than the majority of nursing homes.