St. Francis Senior Ministries

Although this nursing home's overall grade was not a highlight, it actually received a very good score in the area of inspections. We awarded it a grade of B+ for that area, which is one of our better grades. Our inspection scores account for a host of factors found on a facility's inspection reports. One key criteria we rely on is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. You should avoid facilities with a list of severe deficiencies flagged. While this facility had a few minor dings on its report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means the government inspectors didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. A couple minor deficiencies aren't the end of the world.

We also ended up giving this facility a fairly respectable grade in the area of nursing, where it received a grade of C. There are many criteria included in this area. Many of the factors reflect the quantity and quality of nurse staffing. This nursing home averages just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low figure. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality measures. While this nursing home got docked a bit for its nursing hours, it excelled in a few of these quality-based metrics. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed very well in this area. This is typically an indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as having a policy of moving a patient more often.

Unfortunately, this nursing home's next highest category was short-term care. However, with a D in this category, it still performed relatively poorly. Our short-term care scores are considered to be most critical for individuals in need of rehabilitation services. Rehabilitation generally mandates higher levels of highly-skilled nursing services. This means not merely nursing services, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other forms of therapy. Not surprisingly, we found that this nursing home provides far less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than the average facility. Finally, we looked at the number of patients that returned home from this nursing home. This nursing home didn't fare well here either. In fact, we found that just 4.6 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home.

This facility's worst area was long-term care, which is the last area we looked at. For this category, we gave this nursing home a grade of D. In a long-term care environment, the primary goal is to keep patients as healthy and safe as possible. This is different than skilled nursing or short-term care where the goal is to rehabilitate residents. After considering the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then analyzed the nursing home's vaccination records. This facility vaccinated 97.2028 percent of its residents for pneumonia, which is better than the average nursing home. Surprisingly, this nursing home also fared well at keeping its patients out of the hospital. It had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days. Sadly, some of its other scores in this category were not as favorable as these.