Coeur D'alene of Cascadia

We want to note that this facility earned a much better grade for long-term care than it received overall. we gave it one of our best grades in that category with an A. Long-term care ratings in this range generally require both 24/7 care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine healthcare services. On top of assessing the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients, which is significantly higher than most nursing homes. Finally, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. It had only 0.04 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Another one of this nursing home's better category scores came in the area of short-term care. In that area, we awarded this nursing home a grade of B+. It actually outpaced most nursing homes in this area. Our short-term care grades are thought to be most meaningful for residents requiring a nursing home for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally requires additional highly-skilled nursing services. This includes not only nursing services, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other variations of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not all facilities employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the information they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we considered the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 6.2 percent of this facility's residents returned home.

The next highest grade we gave this nursing home in any area came in the category of nursing, where we gave it a grade of C. The nursing rating considers numerous factors. The most heavily weighted one is the amount of time nurses spent with residents. This facility provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per patient on a daily basis. This is a much lower figure than we were hoping for. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this place actually fared better in some of the quality measures we looked at. In fact, it performed well when it comes to minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. Many consider these areas to be reliable measures of the quality of nursing care. In many cases, the quality of nursing care is every bit as important as the number of hours of care offered.

Turning our final category, inspections proved to be this nursing home's weakest link. It received a C in this category. Inspection ratings relate to a facility's government inspection reports. Our inspection grades are tied to many data points located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Deficiencies are an important thing to look for on these reports. Severe deficiencies indicate a risk to resident safety. This facility had 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to find that none were category G through L deficiencies. This indicates this facility avoided the more serious classes of deficiencies. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.