Woodlyn Heights Healthcare Center

This nursing home received a quality overall score as described above, but we especially wanted to emphasize its nearly flawless government inspections in recent years. We gave them an impressive grade of A+ in this category. Inspection ratings are based on many items found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that excel in this category have very few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these nursing homes should not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. This facility was hit with 2 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered severe. This indicates that the inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies to be an immediate risk to resident health or safety. A couple relatively minor dings are not necessarily the end of the world.

Contributing to its profile, this facility also earned a score of B+ for its short-term care rating. This is a well above average grade in this category. Short-term care ratings are vital for individuals requiring rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually requires higher levels of skilled nursing. This means a vast spectrum of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. Unfortunately, we were not able to find information on registered nurse or physical therapy staffing for this nursing home. The last measure we assessed in this category is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. This place performed as well as just about any nursing home in Minnesota in this area with 58.3 percent of its residents returning home. Unfortunately, at most nursing homes, fewer than half of their short-term patients are able to return home.

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. Our nursing score looks at the facility's nurse staffing levels. We weigh both the levels of skill of the nurses and the number of hours spent with residents. This nursing home provides 0 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This place performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a facility has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can often be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

Our last category is long-term care, where we awarded this nursing home a grade of C in that category. For prospective residents looking for a permanent residence rather than skilled nursing, long-term care is a very important category. In addition to looking at the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 94.85715 percent of its patients. This nursing home keeps its residents out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.