St Paul Health Center

We would like to point out that this facility's nursing score exceeded its overall score. This facility earned a B+ in this category, which is one of our better grades. When calculating our nursing grades, we weigh both nursing hours and the levels of licensure of those nurses. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at some nursing quality-based metrics in determining our nursing grades. This facility performed very well in the area of minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

One of this nursing home's better category scores was in the area of long-term care. This turned out to be its second most favorable category. In that category, we gave this facility a grade of B-. For long-term care residents, the facility's primary goal is to maintain patients' quality of life and keep them safe. After we finished assessing the quantity of care provided by nurses, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination data. Frankly, we were a bit concerned this nursing home vaccinated just 70.680626 percent of its patients against pneumonia. Nevertheless, this place keeps its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

This facility received a good score in the area of inspections as well. In fact, we awarded it a B- for that category, which is one of our better scores. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in computing these inspection grades. One of those factors is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of the deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the number of deficiencies, as some are relatively insignificant. While this place had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are labeled as categories G through L. This tells you that the government inspectors didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. A few minor deficiencies should not lead you to cross a nursing home off your list.

The last category we rated is short-term care. In that category, we gave this nursing home a grade of C. In computing our short-term care scores, we quantify the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, speech therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. Our goal is to formulate a tool for sizing up the rehabilitation services of different nursing homes. Unfortunately, we found that this place provided fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than most other nursing homes. The key is determining what bearing this had on quality of care. Finally, we looked at the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 4.3 percent of this facility's patients returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their residents are able to return home so this figure is below average.