The Estates at St Louis Park

Even though we gave this facility a poor overall grade, we actually gave it a fairly respectable grade in nursing, where it received a grade of B-. This was better than its other category scores. Our nursing grade features a variety of subcategories. The most heavily weighted variable is the quantity of hours nurses spent with residents. This facility provided just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a relatively low total compared to most other facilities. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this nursing home fared better in some of the quality measures we looked at. It scored well in terms of avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be reliable indicators of the quality of nursing care. In many cases, the quality of nursing care is just as important as the quantity of hours of care offered.

This facility's next highest area turned out to be short-term care. In that category, we gave this facility a grade of B-. Our short-term care grades are likely more important for individuals requiring rehabilitation services. Rehabilitation typically mandates more skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing means not only nursing, but also physical and occupational therapy, as well as other variations of therapy. In this place's case, we were surprised to learn that it actually provides less registered nurse and physical therapist hours per patient than the average facility. The final item we assessed in this category is the number of patients who were able to leave the nursing home and return home. We discovered that just 3.3 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home, which is below average.

This nursing home was given its third best category grade in the category of long-term care. We gave this nursing home a grade of B- in this area, which is a decent grade. Long-term care scores are pivotal for individuals requiring non-healthcare services such as personal care. Once we assessed the volume of care provided by nurses, we turned to the facility's vaccination record. We were optimistic to discover that this facility vaccinates 95.27897 percent of its patients against pneumonia. This place was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. It had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

Turning the final category of government inspections, we gave this facility a grade of just D for our inspection category. This proved to be this nursing home's worst grade. We take a weak grade in this category very seriously. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in computing these inspection scores. One critical factor is deficiencies. We would pay close attention to the severity of those deficiencies. This nursing home was assessed 3 deficiencies by CMS. The only favorable thing we can say is that none of the deficiencies were in the categories that suggest that they created a risk to patient safety or health. Finally, CMS flagged this nursing home for possible abuse or neglect. This is not what you want to see. We advise you to direct your search elsewhere.