Cascadia of Boise

Even though we were not complementary of this facility's overall score, it received an impressive short-term care rating this year. We gave it a B+ in this area, which proved to be a rare glimmer of hope in its profile. In the category of short-term care, we try to evaluate measures of a facility's rehabilitation services. We look at a nursing home's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses and various therapists. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all facilities employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the information they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final item we considered in this area is the number of patients that who were able to eventually return home from the nursing home. We found that 6.1 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

One of the other reasons we graded this facility so highly is that it earned a very impressive nursing rating. This proved to be its second best category grade. In that category, we gave this nursing home an B+. The nursing rating weighs several subcategories. The most important one is the amount of time nurses spend with residents. This particular nursing home provided 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This facility performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a place has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can many times be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

Moving on to the category of long-term care, this facility was given a grade of just D in that category. For residents seeking a permanent place to live rather than skilled nursing, long-term care is an important category. After assessing the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we turned to the nursing home's vaccination records. We were optimistic to learn that this nursing home vaccinated 96 percent of its residents for pneumonia. Surprisingly, this facility also keeps its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days. Sadly, a few of its other scores in the category were not as favorable as these.

The last category we assessed is inspections. Unfortunately, this facility didn't receive favorable inspections in recent years. Consequently, we had to give it an F. You should pay close attention to any deficiencies on a nursing home's inspection reports when it receives this poor of an inspection score. We would pay close attention to the severity of those deficiencies. This particular facility had 3 deficiencies by government inspectors. The only favorable thing we can say is that none of these deficiencies were in the categories that indicate they posed a threat to resident health or safety. Finally, this facility also received 37 substantiated complaints in recent years. This is yet another bad sign.