St Francis Manor

On top of being an elite nursing home overall, this facility performed well in the area of inspections, where it received an A+. Very few nursing homes fared as well in this category. Our inspection ratings 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. Nursing homes with better grades in this category usually have very few of these severe deficiencies. This nursing home received 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none were considered to be severe deficiencies. This tells you that the government inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Contributing to its first-rate profile, this nursing home also received a strong long-term care grade, with a grade of A. When facilities receive a score in this range in this category it generally means it's well-staffed and is an overall good place to reside on a permanent basis. In addition to assessing the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is what we like to see. Pneumonia sadly can be a dangerous ailment for nursing home patients so we prefer when a nursing home does not roll the dice on this issue. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

This nursing home also performed well in the category of short-term care, where we awarded it a score of A-. Very few facilities received a better grade in this category. Short-term care scores are based in part on the facility's quantity of skilled skilled healthcare professionals. This means a vast spectrum of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, not to mention other types of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. However, based on the data this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we considered the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 5.2 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home.

Turning to the next area, this facility was given a high-end nursing grade. In fact, we awarded it an A- in that area, rounding out a straight A profile. Nursing ratings are based in large part on quality and quantity of nursing care. This nursing home provides 0.5 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 Iowa in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can typically be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by having a policy of moving patients more often.