Eagle Creek Nursing Center

The main reason this nursing home received a decent overall score is its excellent government inspections in recent years. We awarded it one of our better grades in that area, with a grade of A-. This is a notably better grade than the place's overall grade, which was decent but not in the elite range. Our inspection grades weigh a host of factors included in a facility's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we rely on is the number and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better scores in this category typically have few severe deficiencies. This place was assessed 2 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe. This indicates that CMS didn't consider any of the deficiencies to be an immediate risk to patient health or safety. A couple minor deficiencies should not lead you to cross a nursing home off your list.

One of this facility's higher category scores was in the area of short-term care. This ended up being its second best category. In that category, we gave this nursing home a C. In the area of short-term care, we attempt to assess measures of a facility's rehabilitation services. We analyze a facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses and various therapists. In this nursing home's case, we were surprised to learn that it actually provides less registered nurse and physical therapist hours per patient than the average facility. The hope is that this does not adversely affect the quality of care. Lastly, we assessed the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most nursing homes, closer to half of their residents are able to return home so this figure is below average.

We also gave this facility a middle of the pack score in the area of long-term care, where it received a grade of C. Our long-term care scores are critical for patients in need of personal care. In addition to considering the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 94.392525 percent of its residents. Finally, this nursing home was also able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Switching gears to our final category, we gave this nursing home a grade of D in nursing. This is the nursing home's weakest category score. In determining a facility's nursing grade, we assess the quantity of hours nurses commit to patients as well as the levels of training of the nurses. This nursing home averaged a meager 0.3 hours of nursing care per patient daily. This is well below average. In addition to receiving below average scores for total nursing hours, this nursing home was less impressive in some of the quality-based measures we looked at in determining our nursing grades. We looked at the percentage of residents experiencing pressure ulcers and found that this nursing home was at roughly 150 percent of the national average in this metric. This is a bad sign when you consider that so many pressure ulcers are believed to be preventable with better nursing care. Unfortunately, this statistic really pulled down this facility's nursing score substantially.