Chandler Convalescent Hospital

Although we were down on this facility overall, we gave it a B+ for our nursing rating. This score is much more impressive than the nursing home's overall score. There are a number of criteria included in this category. Most of the datapoints are tied to the quantity and quality of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also assessed some nursing quality measures in determining our nursing grades. This facility performed very well in the area of minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

Another one of this facility's more impressive category scores was in the area of long-term care. In that category, we awarded this nursing home a B. It actually outpaced most nursing homes in this category. Nursing homes that receive this type of score in this category tend to provide consistent around the clock care to make sure residents are kept in good health. Once we assessed the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination data. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its residents for pneumonia. Vaccines are vital to keeping patients out of the hospital. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

This facility's second lowest category was short-term care, where it received a grade of just D in that category. This is a relatively poor score. Our short-term care grades are arguably most meaningful for individuals in need of rehabilitation from their nursing home. Rehabilitation generally requires additional highly-skilled nursing. This means not only nursing services, but also physical and occupational therapy, as well as other variations of therapy. With a grade this poor for this area, we weren't stunned to find this facility was well below average in multiple staffing metrics we assess. It offered substantially fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per patient than most other facilities. The last datapoint we considered in this area is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We discovered that just 3.6 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home, which is well below average. The combination of these subpar statistics doomed this nursing home's short-term care grade.

Turning the last category of inspections, this facility had an abysmal showing. Sadly, it received an F in our inspection rating. This is our most heavily weighted category in our overall scoring system. When a facility has this bad of an inspection rating, you should expect some severe deficiencies on its inspection report. Severe deficiencies indicate a risk to patient safety. This particular nursing home was assessed 6 deficiencies by CMS. The only positive thing we can say is that none of its deficiencies were in the categories that indicate they posed a risk to resident health or safety. Finally, we would like to draw your attention to the fact that this facility was assessed significant government fines exceeding $50,000. This often signifies that CMS inspectors became fed up after multiple years of failed inspections.