Elms Haven Center

Although we were not high on this facility's overall performance, it actually received an impressive inspection report this year with few dings from the applicable government inspectors. As a result, it received one of our better grades in that area with a B. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in computing these inspection ratings. One of those factors is deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of deficiencies is usually more important than the quantity of deficiencies, as some deficiencies are quite minor. This facility was assessed 2 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be severe. This indicates that the government inspectors didn't deem any of these deficiencies to create an immediate threat to patient health or safety. A couple minor deficiencies aren't the end of the world.

We also gave this facility a solid score in the area of long-term care, with a C. In the area of long-term care, we analyze the quantity of services offered by a nursing home, as opposed to more medically-intensive services. After looking at the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we turned to the nursing home's vaccination records. This nursing home vaccinated 92.59842 percent of its residents against pneumonia, which happens to be a few points below what we expected but still a reasonably acceptable figure. Fortunately, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

This facility's third highest area is short-term care. In that category, we gave this facility a grade of C. In the category of short-term care, we seek to qualify indicators of a nursing home's rehabilitation. We assess a facility's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses and physical therapists. In this place's case, we were surprised to learn that it actually provides less registered nurse and physical therapist hours per patient than a typical facility. The hope is always that this does not adversely affect the quality of care. The final metric we considered in this area is the number of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We discovered that just 4.2 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home, which is below average.

Switching gears to the fourth category, we awarded this facility a grade of D in nursing. This is the nursing home's worst category grade. Our nursing score weighs several subcategories, but the main consideration is the number of nurse hours spent with patients. This particular place averaged a meager 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident each day. This statistic is significantly below average. To go along with its subpar totals in the area of nursing hours per patient, this facility also did not fare as well in the quality-based measures we looked at in calculating our nursing grades. We looked at the percentage of patients experiencing major falls and pressure ulcers. This nursing home had more pressure ulcers and falls than the average nursing home.