Cottonwood Canyon Healthcare Center

While this nursing home's overall grade was not a highlight, it actually received a somewhat respectable score in the category of inspections. We awarded it a B- for this area, which is not bad. Inspection grades weigh several factors, including deficiencies, substantiated complaints and federal fines. You can learn more about each of these items by reviewing copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. This facility received 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none were considered to be severe. This indicates that the inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies to be an immediate risk to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility was cited by CMS for possible abuse or neglect. We would not recommend this facility under any circumstance.

This facilities next most favorable area was short-term care. We gave it a grade of B- in this category. This is essentially a middle of the road grade in this category. In determining our short-term care ratings, we look at a facility's levels of highly skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists respiratory therapists and other types of therapists. This category is typically a reliable measure of a facility's rehabilitation services. In this place's case, we were surprised to learn that it actually provides less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per patient than the typical facility. The hope is always that this does not adversely impact the quality of care. Finally, we assessed the number of residents who who were able to eventually return home from this nursing home. We found that 4.9 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home. This figure was actually well below average.

This nursing home actually received a decent grade in the area of nursing as well. We awarded it a grade of C for that category, which is not a bad score. We analyzed the licensure of nurses at the nursing home, in addition to the number of hours the nurses were with residents, in calculating our grade in this area. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a much lower figure than we are used to seeing. Lastly, although this place got dinged a bit for nursing hours per resident, it actually excelled in some of our quality metrics. With fewer than five percent of its residents suffering from pressure ulcers, it did well in this subcategory.

The next category we assessed is long-term care, which turned out to be this facility's weakest category. We awarded this facility a D in this category. For long-term care residents, the facility's primary goal is to maintain patients' quality of life and keep them safe. Once we concluded our assessment of the quantity of care provided by nurses, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination records. We were pleased to discover that this facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients against pneumonia. To our surprise, this facility also keeps its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days. Sadly, a few of its other scores in this category were not as favorable as these.