Sweet Memorial Nursing Home
125 Airport Rd, Chinook MT 59523 · (406) 357-2549 · 90.47% estimated occupancy 1Updated: Aug 1, 2020 · By Nick Lata
Sweet Memorial Nursing Home is a small non-profit nursing home in Chinook, Montana. Sporting an overall rating of A, this nursing home is ranked among the best nursing homes we assessed. We were so impressed with this nursing home that we rated it as one of the 25 best nursing homes in Montana. This facility's impressive profile was highlighted by its short-term care score, which you can find in the next paragraph.
Additional Details:
Accepts Medicare 1 :
Accepts Medicaid 1 : 42 Beds
CCRC :
Non profit - Corporation
Resident Council:
Family Council:
Medical Staff Hours Per Patient (2019)
Short-term Care Quality
On top of receiving a great overall grade, this facility also received an A+ short-term care grade. Our short-term care grade is generally used to grade a nursing home's performance with rehabilitation. In order to offer highly rated rehabilitation services, facilities generally must provide higher levels of skilled nursing. These types of services include registered nurses, physical therapists, speech therapists and other types of therapists. One of this nursing home's strengths is physical therapy hours. We found that it offers at least 50% more hours with physical therapists to its residents than most other facilities. The last item we looked at in this category is the number of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We found that it fared as well as just about any facility in Montana in this area with 67.5 percent of its patients returning home.
Facility Inspections
Adding to its impressive category scores, this nursing home excelled in the area of inspections, where it earned an A-. Few nursing homes performed better in this area. These inspection scores weigh several factors, including deficiencies, substantiated complaints and federal fines. You can learn more about each of these items by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. This particular nursing home received 6 deficiencies on its inspection report. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.
Long-term Care Quality
We also would like to draw your attention to the fact that this facility received a dominant score of A- in our long-term care area. When nursing homes receive this kind of score in long-term care it is a good sign for resident care and indicates that the nursing home is well-staffed with nurses aids. On top of considering the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility provided the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is far higher than most nursing homes. This facility also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. It had only 1.05 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a much lower hospitalization rate than most nursing homes.
Nurse Quality
In our last category, we gave this nursing home a grade of A- for our nursing grade. This rounded out a first-rate profile. Our nursing rating focuses on the facility's nurse staffing levels. We consider both the levels of training of the nurses and the amount of time spent with residents. This facility provided 3.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also looked at some quality-based measures in this category. This place fared well in some of the quality measures we assessed. For example, in terms of the number of its patients suffering from pressure ulcers, this nursing home performed better than the national average. This is generally an indicator that a nursing home has reliable quality controls in place. Pressure ulcers can many times be prevented with better nursing care.
Overall Rating Over Time
Compared to national and state averages across all facilities.
Sweet Memorial Nursing Home Quality Metrics
Minimizes Pressure Ulcers
This tells you the percent of residents that sustained a pressure ulcer. Pressure ulcers, which are also called bed sores, are routinely caused by patients staying in one position for too long. Better nursing protocols can reduce the percentage of residents in a nursing home who sustain pressure ulcers.
Percent of Patients with Pressure Ulcers
Lower is Better
Minimizes Serious Falls
This is the percentage of patients that have had a fall resulting in serious injury.
Percent of Patients with Serious Falls
Lower is Better
Minimizes Urinary Tract Infections
This is the percentage of residents that have had a urinary tract infection. Urinary tract infections are considered by many experts to be an indicator of the quality of nursing care at a nursing home. UTI's are often associated with a facility with lower levels of hygiene. However, this metric could be misleading for some facilities due to different reporting standards for urinary tract infections.
Percent of Patients with UTIs
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Psychotic Medication
This datapoint indicates the percent of long-term care residents taking antipsychotic medications. While antipsychotic drugs serve an important medical purpose, it is important to confirm these drugs are being used only where medically required. In some situations, excessive reliance on these medications may indicate that a nursing home is using these medications to subdue residents.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Anxiety Medication
This is the percent of residents who were given antianxiety medications. Antianxiety medications are given to patients experiencing depression and anxiety.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Managing Depression Among Residents
This indicates the percent of patients who are exhibiting depressive symptoms. Increased rates of depression could indicate a less hospitable environment.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriate Vaccine Usage
This is a measure of the percentage of long-term residents that were vaccinated against pneumonia and flu.
Percent of Patients
Higher is Better
Residents Maintain Autonomy
This tells you the percent of patients who required increased assistance with activities of daily living over time. High levels of dependence on staff for assistance with ADL's may indicate erosion of a patient's health.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Ability to Keep Residents Mobile
This tells you the percent of residents that were able to retain mobility over time. Preserving mobility is often a great sign for residents' health.
Percentage of Residents
Higher is Better
Hospitalizations
This datapoint is a measure of the number of hospitalizations per thousand days of patient care. Keeping residents out of the hospital is important to maintaining the physical health of nursing home patients.
Hospitalizations per 1,000 resident days
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Rehospitalizations
This metric is a measure of the number of rehospitalizations per 1,000 days of short-term patient care.
Percentage of Residents Rehospitalized
Lower is Better