Elizabethtown Healthcare & Rehab Center

To go along with its strong overall grade, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A+ for our inspections rating. Inspection scores are tied to items found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes that score well in this category typically have few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these facilities generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. This nursing home was hit with 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe. This indicates that the government inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies to cause an immediate risk to resident safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

In addition, this nursing home also was given favorable long-term care scores this year. Indeed, we awarded it one of our stronger grades in that area, with a grade of B+. Facilities that receive this kind of grade in this category tend to provide consistent around the clock care to make sure patients are kept in good health. One of the criteria we considered after nursing hours was vaccines. This nursing home administered the pneumonia vaccination to 100 percent of its residents. Vaccination is a great way to avoid unnecessary hospitalizations for the aged 65 and up population. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. It had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

Turning to an additional strength for this facility, we gave them one of our more positive grades in our short-term care category as well, with a B. In determining these short-term care scores, we quantify the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The objective is to create a barometer for comparing the rehabilitation services of different facilities. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final statistic we considered in this area is the number of patients who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We discovered that 0 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home.

The next area we rated is nursing, in which this nursing home was given a B-. This is this facility's least impressive category. This is still nothing to be ashamed of. Nursing grades are based largely on quality and quantity of nursing care. This nursing home averages just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low figure. Lastly, despite not having the highest total nursing hours per resident, this place actually performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is typically a reliable indicator that a nursing home has quality controls in place.