Elizabethtown Healthcare & Rehab Center

This facility received a strong overall grade as described above, but we especially wanted to emphasize its nearly flawless health inspections in recent years. We gave it an A+ in this area. Perhaps the most important factor we look at in computing our inspection grades is deficiencies. Deficiencies are found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Places with higher scores in this area most likely dodged the more severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. While this place had some deficiencies on its inspection report, none were serious based on CMS' deficiency scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This facility also received a favorable long-term care grade. Indeed, we gave it an above average grade of B+ in this category. Nursing homes that receive this type of grade in long-term care typically provide consistent around the clock care to make sure patients are well cared for. In addition to assessing the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility provided the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients, which is much higher than most nursing homes. Lastly, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

This facility's next best category grade came in the area of nursing. In that category, we gave this nursing home a grade of B-. This wasn't quite on par with some of its other category grades mentioned above. Nursing ratings are tied to nurse staffing levels. This nursing home provides only 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident on a daily basis. This is a somewhat uninspiring figure which is well below the national average. Lastly, while this facility got dinged a bit for its nursing hours, it actually excelled in some of our quality metrics. With fewer than five percent of its patients experiencing pressure ulcers, it did well in this metric.

Switching gears to our fourth area, this facility was given a C in short-term care, which is an acceptable rating. In calculating these short-term care ratings, we analyze the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, speech therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The objective is to formulate a barometer for comparing the rehabilitation services of various facilities. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not all facilities employs these skilled professionals. However, based on the information this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final statistic we looked at in this area is the number of patients who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We discovered that just 3.9 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home, which is actually below average.