Ellenburg Nursing Center

While we did not have many favorable things to say about this place's overall grade, it did receive a somewhat respectable government inspection report this year. It received a decent grade in this area with a B-. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in determining these inspection scores. One critical factor is health deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of the deficiencies is usually more important than the number of deficiencies, as some end up being quite minor. 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 was cited by CMS for possible abuse or neglect. We would not recommend this facility under any circumstance.

One of this nursing home's more favorable category scores was in the area of long-term care. This wound up being its second best category. In that category, we gave this nursing home a grade of B-. For long-term care residents, the facility's primary goal is to maintain patients' quality of life and keep them safe. On top of looking at the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. As it turns out, this facility provided the vaccine to a relatively low 42.922375 percent of its patients, which is somewhat alarming. Fortunately, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This nursing home actually received a decent grade in the area of nursing as well. We awarded it a grade of C for that category, which is not a bad score. Nursing scores are based in large part on quality and quantity of nursing care. This nursing home provides only 0.4 hours of nursing care per patient per day. This is a somewhat alarming figure as it is well below the national average. Lastly, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics. Although this place got docked a bit for its nursing hours, it excelled in a few of these quality-based measures. With less than five percent of its residents suffering from pressure ulcers, it fared remarkably well in this area. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as by employing a policy of moving patients at least once a day.

Moving on to the next area, we awarded this nursing home a grade of D for short-term care. This was the facility's least impressive category grade. Our short-term care grade is typically used to measure a nursing home's performance with rehabilitation. In order to have highly scored rehabilitation services, nursing homes generally must offer better levels of skilled nursing. These types of services include registered nurses, physical therapists, speech therapists and other types of therapists. Not surprisingly, we found that this nursing home provides far less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than the average facility. Finally, we considered the percentage of patients who ultimately were able to return home from this nursing home. This nursing home didn't fare well here either. In fact, we found that just 4.5 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home. This figure was well off the national average.