Deer Creek of Wimberley

While we were not very complementary of this facility's overall grade, it received a very impressive inspection report this year. In fact, it received a nearly flawless inspection report this year. As a result, it earned one of our highest grades in that category with an A-. Arguably the most critical factor we look at in calculating our inspection grades is deficiencies. These deficiencies can be found on a facility's recent inspection reports. It is generally in your best interest to avoid facilities that had a long list of deficiencies. Fortunately, although this facility had a few minor dings on its report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means that CMS didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. A couple minor deficiencies are not the end of the world.

This facility's short-term care rating turns out to be one of its more favorable scores. The facility was awarded a C in this category. In determining our short-term care scores, we size up the facility's levels of skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists respiratory therapists and other highly skilled individuals. This area is often a meaningful assessment of a nursing home's rehabilitation services. In this place's case, we were surprised to learn that it actually provides less registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than the average facility. The hope is that this does not adversely affect the quality of care. The last metric we considered in this category is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the nursing home and return home. We discovered that just 4.6 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home, which is actually below average.

Tragically, we gave this facility an F for its long-term care grade. For long-term care residents, the primary objective is to maintain patients' quality of life and keep them safe. On top of looking at the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. Fortunately, this nursing home administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients, which is a very respectable datapoint. Surprisingly, this place also fared well at keeping its patients out of the hospital. It had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days. Sadly, some of its other scores in this category were not as favorable as these.

The next category we graded was nursing. This facility was given a bottom of the barrel grade of F in that category. In determining our nursing grades, we analyze both nursing hours and the levels of licensure of those nurses. This facility offered only 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is an alarmingly low total. To pair with its low totals in the area of nursing hours per resident, this nursing home also did not fare as well in the quality-based measures we looked at in computing our nursing ratings. We looked at the percent of patients sustaining pressure ulcers and major falls. This nursing home had more pressure ulcers and falls than the average facility.