Sheffield Care Center

In addition to performing well in its overall grade, this facility performed at an even higher level in the area of inspections. In fact, it received a nearly flawless inspection report this year. As a result, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A. Inspection grades weigh several factors included in a nursing home'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 usually have few severe deficiencies. While this nursing home had some deficiencies on its government inspection report, none were serious based on CMS' scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This nursing home received a strong long-term care score as well. We gave it one of our higher grades in that category with a score of B+. When facilities receive this type of score in long-term care it is usually a good sign for resident care and indicates that the facility is well-staffed with nurses and aids. One of the statistics we considered after nursing hours is vaccinations. This nursing home administered the pneumonia vaccine to 96.61017 percent of its residents. Vaccination is a proven method to avoid unnecessary hospitalizations for the senior population. 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 only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

This facility received a very good nursing grade this year as well. It received one of our better scores in that category with a grade of B. Our nursing grade assesses the nursing home's nurse staffing levels. We look at both the levels of training of those nurses and the number of hours spent with patients. This particular nursing home provided 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at 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 Iowa in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as employing a policy of turning residents more frequently.

The last category we assessed is short-term care. We awarded this facility a grade of B- in this area. Short-term care grades are crucial for prospective residents needing rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically requires additional highly-skilled nursing. Skilled nursing means a vast scope of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not all facilities employs these types of nurses. However, based on the information they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final statistic we considered in this category is the percentage of patients who ultimately were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that just 4.3 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home.