Elderwood at Lancaster

In addition to performing well overall, this nursing home also earned nearly flawless government inspections. Therefore, it received one of our best grades in that category with an A+. Our inspection grades are based on pieces of information located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes that excel in this category tend to have few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these facilities should not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. 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 was given a very impressive short-term care grade. This actually is its second best category grade. In that category, we gave this facility a score of A. Our short-term care ratings are based on the facility's quantity of skilled nursing services. This means a broad scope of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final metric we assessed in this area is the number of residents that returned home from the facility. We found that 6.5 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

The third category we looked at was long-term care. This facility was given a favorable long-term care score, with a grade of B+ in the category. Nursing homes that excel in long-term care typically are well-staffed and provide extensive hands on care to residents. After considering the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we then looked at the facility's vaccination record. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is significantly higher than the vast majority of nursing homes. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

The last area we assessed was nursing. We gave this nursing home a decent grade in this area, with a B-. Even though this wasn't as high as some of its other scores, it is still not the end of the world. Nursing ratings are based largely on nurse staffing levels. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a relatively low total compared to most other facilities. Finally, we also looked at some nursing quality measures. Although this facility got docked a bit for nursing hours, it actually excelled in a few of these quality-based measures. With fewer than five percent of its patients sustaining pressure ulcers, it fared remarkably well in this statistic. This is generally an indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as employing a protocol of moving patients at least once a day.