St Johns Lutheran Home

In addition to earning a great overall grade, this nursing home really excelled in the area of nursing, where it received an A+. Our nursing grade is based on the facility's nurse staffing levels. We weigh both the levels of licensure of the nurses as well as the quantity of hours spent with residents. This nursing home provides 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures and this place excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any facility Minnesota in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as by employing a policy of turning a resident even once per day.

This facility also received high marks in the area of short-term care, with top notch grade of A- in this area. In the area of short-term care, we strive to assess indicators of a nursing home's rehabilitation. We analyze the facility's skilled nursing services, such as the ones performed by registered nurses and physical, occupational and other therapists. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. However, based on the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final measure we considered in this area is the number of patients who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We discovered that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents were able to return home.

The third area we looked at was long-term care. In that category, we gave this facility a B-. In determining our long-term care grades, we assess the assistance with daily living received by a nursing home's patients. On top of looking at the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. Fortunately, this facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents, which is a very respectable statistic. Finally, this nursing home was also able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

The final category we assessed is inspections. We were surprised to find that this nursing home did not receive a favorable inspection grade. We gave it a just D in this area. Clearly, this score is not on par with some of this nursing home's other category grades. Inspection ratings relate to a facility's government inspections. Since this information is collected by government inspectors, we tend to weight it pretty heavily. Our inspection scores weigh a host of factors found on a facility's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we rely on is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. This particular nursing home was hit with 9 deficiencies by CMS. The only positive thing we can say is that none of its deficiencies were in the categories that indicate they posed a risk to patient health or safety. Lastly, we would like to draw your attention to the fact that this facility was assessed large government fines recently of over $50,000. This usually indicates that CMS inspectors became frustrated after several years of failed inspections.