Sunterra Springs Independence

Sunterra Springs Independence is a small nursing home located in Independence, Missouri. This nursing home received an overall grade of B+, which is a well above average rating. Based on the data we reviewed, you could do much worse than this nursing home. This nursing home's impressive profile was highlighted by its inspection score, which we will address in the next paragraph.

This nursing home received a strong overall grade as described above, but we especially wanted to emphasize its nearly flawless government inspections in recent years. We gave it an A in this category. Arguably the most critical factor we look at in determining our inspection grades is deficiencies. These deficiencies can be found on a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places with higher grades in this category most likely dodged the most severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. This nursing home received 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but fortunately none were considered severe. This tells you that the inspectors did not deem any of these deficiencies to pose an immediate threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This nursing home truly excelled in the area of short-term care, where we gave it a grade of A-. Few nursing homes performed better in this area. In forming our short-term care ratings, we analyze the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The objective is to create a barometer for sizing up the rehabilitation services of various nursing homes. This facility excelled in the two key staffing areas we looked at. It provided more care from registered nurses and physical therapists than the typical nursing home. The final measure we looked at in this area is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We found that it fared as well as just about any nursing home in Missouri in this area with 65.7 percent of its patients returning home.

We also awarded this nursing home a score of A- for our long-term care grade. Facilities that receive this kind of grade in long-term care typically provide consistent around the clock care to make sure patients are kept in good health. After looking at the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination data. We were not able to locate this place's vaccination data. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

The final category we assessed was nursing, where this facility received a C. While this turned out to be its weakest category rating, this is still not a major area of concern. We assessed the licensure of nurses at the nursing home, as well as the quantity of time the nurses were with residents, in computing our rating in this area. This facility provides an impressive 4.1 hours of nursing care per patient daily. This is one of the better totals in Missouri. Finally, we also assessed some nursing quality measures in determining our nursing ratings. This place performed very well in terms of minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers. Many consider these statistics to be good measures of the quality of nursing care.