The Madison

The Madison is located in Fort Madison, Iowa. This is a great facility. We gave this it an overall grade of B+, which is very favorable rating. Based on our assessment, you can do much worse than this facility. While we were impressed with this facility overall, we did want to let you know that there was an ownership change in the last year. We will keep an eye on their inspections and quality scores to confirm they maintain their high marks in the future.

In addition to being a first rate facility overall, this facility also performed well in our inspections category, where it received an A+. Few facilities fared this well in this category. Inspection grades weigh a host of factors included in a facility's inspection report. One key criteria we consider is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better grades in this area generally have few of these severe deficiencies. This facility was hit with 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but fortunately none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe. This tells you that CMS didn't deem any of the deficiencies to cause an imminent threat to resident health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Contributing to this facility's list of accomplishments, it also was awarded a superb long-term care score. We gave them an impressive strong of A- in this area. When nursing homes receive a grade in this range in long-term care it generally means it's well-staffed and is an overall good place to live on a permanent basis. After assessing the very impressive nursing care provided by this facility, we turned to the facility's vaccination record. This nursing home vaccinated 99.14163 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is far higher than the vast majority of nursing homes. This combination proved to be successful as this nursing home keeps its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had just 1.61 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days.

The next most favorable category we gave this nursing home in any category came in the category of short-term care, where we awarded it a grade of B-. In our short-term care category, we seek to craft a fair measure for rehabilitation services. In doing so, we look at a nursing home's scope of highly-skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as occupational therapy. Fortunately, this nursing home offers both physical therapists and registered nurses. Not all facilities offer both. The last item we considered in this area is the number of residents who were able to leave the facility and return home. We found it was above average in this metric with 51.7 percent of its patients returning home.

Switching gears to the fourth area, this facility received an acceptable nursing rating. While this wasn't as strong as a few of its other scores, this is truly a middle of the pack score. Nursing ratings are based largely on nurse staffing levels. This particular nursing home provided 4.1 hours of nursing care per resident each day, which was among the higher totals we found. Finally, we also factored some quality measures into our nursing grades. Specifically, we looked at the percent of residents who sustained pressure ulcers and major falls. We look at these metrics as good indicators of the quality of nursing care, since better care tends to reduce these problems.