Eagle Creek Nursing Center

While we were not high on this place's overall performance, it actually received an impressive inspection report this year with few dings from the applicable government inspectors. As a result, it received one of our better grades in that category with a B+. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in computing our inspection ratings. One of those factors is health deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of deficiencies is arguably more important than the quantity of deficiencies, as some deficiencies are quite minor. Although this nursing home had a few deficiencies on its report, none of them were severe based on CMS' deficiency scale. A few minor deficiencies are not the end of the world.

One of this nursing home's more respectable category grades came in the area of short-term care. This proved to be its second best category. In that category, we gave this facility a grade of B-. In determining our short-term care ratings, we analyze the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The goal is to formulate a scale for sizing up the rehabilitation services of various nursing homes. In this place's case, we were surprised to learn that it actually provides less registered nurse and physical therapist hours per patient than a typical facility. The hope is always that this does not adversely affect the quality of care. Lastly, we looked at the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their patients are able to return home so this figure is below average.

As it turns out, this facility only received a grade of D for its long-term care grade, which is well below average in this category. Nursing homes that don't fare well in long-term care typically are not as well-staffed and are lagging in a few of the areas of routine medical care we looked at. On top of considering the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 93.069305 percent of its patients. This is somewhat below what we were hoping for but still a decent percentage. Surprisingly, this facility actually fared well at keeping its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had just 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days. This is its best score in this category.

The final category we scored is nursing. It received an F in this area, which is an abysmal grade. Our nursing score is based on the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. We weigh both the levels of training of those nurses and the quantity of hours spent with residents. This place provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low total compared to most nursing homes. Lastly, we also assessed some nursing quality measures in computing our nursing grades. This place fared well when it comes to avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls. Many consider these data points to be good measures of the quality of nursing care.