Elderwood at Lancaster

On top of receiving an elite overall grade, this nursing home also earned an A+ inspection score. This is based on its recent government inspections. An A+ in this category is one of the highest complements we can offer a nursing home. Our inspection scores are tied to pieces of information found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Facilities that score well in this category have few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these nursing homes should not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This nursing home also received a strong short-term care grade. Indeed, this turned out to be its second strongest category grade. In that category, this facility received a grade of A-. In the area of short-term care, we endeavor to evaluate measures of a nursing home's rehabilitation services. We assess the facility's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses and physical therapists. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the information they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. Finally, we assessed the number of residents who ultimately returned home from this facility. We found that 5.3 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

Turning to another strength for this nursing home, we awarded them one of our stronger grades in our long-term care category as well, with a B+. Long-term care grades in this range generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine healthcare services. Once we looked at the volume of care provided by nurses and other staff, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination data. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is much higher than the majority of nursing homes. Finally, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

The next area we graded proved to be this facility's weakest area. However, even in its worst category we still gave it a decent grade of B- in our nursing category. The nursing score includes a host of factors. The most important factor is the amount of time nurses spend with residents. This nursing home averages just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low figure. Finally, we also factored in a few quality-based measures in this category. Although this place did not rank well in terms of its nursing hours, it performed better in some of the quality-based metrics we assessed. In terms of the number of its residents experiencing pressure ulcers, this nursing home performed better than average. This is generally an indicator that a nursing home has quality controls in place. Pressure ulcers can often be prevented with better nursing care.