Grinnell Health Care Center

On top of receiving a strong overall grade, this place also earned first-rate inspections in recent years. We awarded them one of our higher grades in this category, with a grade of A. Our inspection scores weigh a host of factors included in a facility's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we look at is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with higher scores in this area typically have few of these severe deficiencies. Fortunately, although this place had some minor dings on its report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means that the government inspectors didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. A couple relatively minor deficiencies are not necessarily something to panic about.

This facility is also strong in the area of nursing, where it received a grade of B+. It outperformed most nursing homes in this category. Nursing scores are largely tied to the nursing home's nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics and this facility excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any nursing home the state in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as by having a system of moving a resident even once per day.

Additionally, this nursing home also was awarded favorable short-term care grades this year. Indeed, we awarded them one of our better grades in that area, with a grade of B. In calculating our short-term care ratings, we analyze the nursing home's levels of skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists respiratory therapists and other highly skilled individuals. This area is generally a fair measure of the nursing home's rehabilitation services. We were not able to locate information about this nursing home's registered nurse or physical therapy staffing. Finally, we looked at the percentage of residents who ultimately returned home from this facility. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

This facility's worst area is long-term care, which is the final area we scored. Sadly, it received an abysmal F in this category. Even with some impressive scores in other categories, this grade is still a bit alarming so we felt obligated to make a note of it. When facilities receive this type of score in long-term care it is a bad sign for resident care and it may mean that the nursing home is not as well-staffed. One of the statistics we considered on top of nurse's aid hours is vaccines. Candidly, we were a bit worried that this nursing home administered the pneumonia vaccine to a relatively low 55.555553 percent of its residents. Surprisingly, this nursing home was actually able to limit hospitalizations. With just 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this nursing home has fewer hospitalizations than the majority of nursing homes. This was its best score in this category.