Crowell Nursing Center

We want to point out that this facility really outperformed its overall grade in the area of inspections. In fact, it received a nearly flawless government inspection report this year. As a result, we gave it one of our best scores in this category with an A. Our inspection scores weigh several factors included in a facility's inspection report. One key criteria we consider is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with higher grades in this category usually have very few severe deficiencies. While this nursing home had a few deficiencies on its government inspection report, none of them were major deficiencies based on CMS' deficiency scale. The fact that the deficiencies were relatively minor made us feel better about this inspection report.

One of the other reasons we rated this nursing home so highly is that it earned a very impressive nursing score. This turned out to be its second best category grade. In that area, we awarded this facility an B-. Our nursing grade analyzes several subcategories, most of which are tied to nursing hours. This facility provides only 0.3 hours of nursing care per patient each day. This is a somewhat uninspiring figure which is well below the national average. Lastly, we also looked at some nursing quality measures. While this place got docked a bit for its nursing hours per resident, it excelled in a few of these quality measures. With less than five percent of its residents suffering from pressure ulcers, it fared well in this statistic. This is often a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can typically be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as having a policy of turning a resident more frequently.

The next category we graded is short-term care. In that area, we awarded this facility a C. Short-term care scores are vital for people seeking rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally requires more skilled nursing. Skilled nursing means a vast scope of services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other types of therapy. Unfortunately, we weren't able to track down information about this nursing home's registered nurse or physical therapy staffing. Finally, we looked at the percentage of patients who ultimately were able to return home from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home. This figure was actually quite a bit below the national average.

The last area we rated was long-term care. This nursing home received a grade of C for this category. Long-term care grades are generally used to measure a nursing home's performance as a traditional convalescent home, as opposed to focusing more on the skilled nursing services provided by a skilled nursing facility. In addition to looking at the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home provided the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients, which is better than the average nursing home. This nursing home was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.