Birchwood Nursing and Rehabilitation Center
395 Middle Road, Nanticoke PA 18634 · (570) 735-2973 · 93.3% estimated occupancy 1Updated: Aug 1, 2020 · By Sara Levinsohn
Birchwood Nursing and Rehabilitation Center is a large facility located in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania. With a abysmal overall grade of F, this nursing home isn't high on our list. If you are not happy with this facility's poor overall grade, you may find your options to be limited in Nanticoke. The city has just one other nursing home. If you aren't deterred by this nursing home's report card, you can continue reading to learn more about its category scores. Inspection grades are discussed in the next section.
Additional Details:
Accepts Medicare 1 :
Accepts Medicaid 1 : 121 Beds
CCRC :
For profit - Corporation
Resident Council:
Family Council:
Medical Staff Hours Per Patient (2019)
Facility Inspections
Although we graded this nursing home incredibly poorly overall, it received a fairly impressive inspection report this year. As a result, it earned one of our better scores in that category with a B+. Inspection scores weigh several factors, including deficiencies and substantiated complaints. You can find more information about each of these factors by reviewing copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. This place received 6 deficiencies on its inspection report, but fortunately none were considered to be major deficiencies. This indicates that CMS did not consider any of these deficiencies to cause an imminent risk to patient health or safety. A couple minor deficiencies are not the end of the world.
Short-term Care Quality
This facility also didn't rate too badly in the area of short-term care. In fact, we awarded it a C in that category, which turned out to be among its better grades. Short-term care ratings are critical for residents needing rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually utilizes additional highly-skilled nursing. This means a broad range of services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other types of therapy. This nursing home employs both physical therapists and registered nurses. Not all facilities employ these skilled professionals. Lastly, we looked at the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. This place performed decently in this area, with 45.7 percent of its residents returning home.
Long-term Care Quality
Tragically, this facility received an F for its long-term care grade. For long-term care residents, the primary objective is to maintain patients' quality of life and keep them safe. After looking at the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we then looked at the facility's vaccination data. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is more than the majority of nursing homes. Surprisingly, this nursing home was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had just 1.18 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days. Unfortunately, a few of its other scores in this category were not as favorable as these.
Nurse Quality
The final area we analyzed is nursing, in which this facility was given an abysmal grade in this category as well. It received a lowly F in this area, which is definitely a major concern. Nursing ratings are tied to quality and quantity of nursing care. This particular nursing home averaged just 2.9 hours of nursing care per patient each day. This statistic is significantly below the national average. In addition to receiving below average marks for total nursing hours, this place was a bit less impressive in some of the quality-based measures we looked at in computing our nursing scores. We looked at the percentage of patients experiencing pressure ulcers and found this nursing home was at roughly 1.5 times the national average in this metric. This is likely a bad sign when you consider that many bed sores are preventable with better nursing care. This statistic really dragged down this nursing home's nursing rating substantially.
Overall Rating Over Time
Compared to national and state averages across all facilities.
Birchwood Nursing and Rehabilitation Center Quality Metrics
Minimizes Pressure Ulcers
This is the percentage of patients that suffered from a pressure ulcer. Pressure ulcers, which are also known as bed sores, are often caused by patients not being moved frequently enough. Better nursing care limits the number of pressure ulcers sustained by residents in a nursing home.
Percent of Patients with Pressure Ulcers
Lower is Better
Minimizes Serious Falls
This figure tells you the percentage of long-term patients who have suffered falls resulting in serious injury. This is one of the statistics we use in calculating our nursing scores.
Percent of Patients with Serious Falls
Lower is Better
Minimizes Urinary Tract Infections
This is the percentage of residents who have had a urinary tract infection. These infections are sometimes associated with poorer hygiene.
Percent of Patients with UTIs
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Psychotic Medication
This is the percent of residents given antipsychotic medications. Antipsychotic medications are prescribed to residents for a variety of medical conditions, such as cognitive disorders. Tragically, in some cases, increased usage of these drugs may suggest that a facility is using these drugs to control patient behavior.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Anxiety Medication
This indicates the percentage of long-term stay patients taking antianxiety drugs.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Managing Depression Among Residents
This datapoint measures the percent of long-term patients demonstrating depressive symptoms.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriate Vaccine Usage
Measures the percent of long-term stay residents who have received the pneumonia and flu vaccines. Respiratory viruses can be fatal for seniors, making these vaccines vital to patient safety.
Percent of Patients
Higher is Better
Residents Maintain Autonomy
This indicates the percent of residents who required additional assistance with activities of daily living over time. High levels of dependence on staff for assistance with ADL's may be a sign of erosion of a resident's health.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Ability to Keep Residents Mobile
This metric is a measure of the percentage of long-term residents who remained mobile levels.
Percentage of Residents
Higher is Better
Hospitalizations
This metric tracks the number of hospitalizations per thousand days of patient care. Avoiding hospitalizations is critical to preserving the physical health of nursing home residents.
Hospitalizations per 1,000 resident days
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Rehospitalizations
This metric tracks the number of rehospitalizations per 1,000 days of short-term care. Avoiding rehospitalizations during rehabilitation is important to restoring the physical abilities of residents.
Percentage of Residents Rehospitalized
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: ER Visits
Measures the number of emergency room visits per thousand days of short-term care. Avoiding medical emergencies is one way to measure patient well-being during rehabilitation.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Facilitates Functional Improvement
This tells you the percentage of short-term stay residents who saw functional improvements, such as enhanced ability to perform activities of daily living. High levels of performance with ADL's often correlates with higher quality rehabilitation.
Percentage of Resident
Higher is Better