Blythe Post Acute

While we were not high on this nursing home overall, we awarded it a B for our short-term care grade. This is more impressive than the facility's overall score. In fact, without this grade, its profile would have been even worse. Our short-term care ratings are presumably more meaningful for individuals requiring a nursing home for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically utilizes more highly-skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes not only nursing services, but also physical and occupational therapy, as well as other variations of therapy. Unfortunately, it does not appear that this facility submitted information about its staffing of registered nurses or physical therapists. The final measure we assessed in this area is the percentage of residents who returned home from the nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

We were also pleasantly surprised to award this facility a relatively favorable health inspection rating as well. We awarded it a respectable grade of B- in this category, which easily topped its overall score. Our inspection scores weigh several factors found on a facility's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we look at is the number and severity of deficiencies. Fortunately, although this nursing home 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 tells you CMS did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. A few minor deficiencies are not necessarily the end of the world.

We awarded this facility a respectable grade in the area of nursing as well, with a grade of B-. There are numerous datapoints within this area. Many of these factors reflect nurse staffing. 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 actually excelled in some of the quality measures we looked at. In fact, it performed well in the area of minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be indicators of the quality of nursing care. In some cases, the quality of nursing care is every bit as important as the quantity of hours of care provided.

The final area we looked at was long-term care. We gave it an F for this category, which is an abysmal score. In a long-term care setting, the nursing home's primary objective is to maintain patients' quality of life and keep them safe. In addition to assessing the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents. To our surprise, this facility also keeps its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days. Sadly, a few of its other scores in the category weren't as favorable as these.