Elms Health Care Center is a nursing home located in Ponca, Nebraska. This city has a total of 1,552 people. Featuring an overall grade of F, we consider this to be a bottom of the barrel nursing home. In our view, you'd be better off to steer clear of this nursing home. We wouldn't blame you if you are ready to stop reading and find another nursing home. However, if you want to learn more about this nursing home's category grades, nursing grades are discussed in the next section.
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Elms Health Care Center
- Nursing Home
Updated Apr 1, 2023 by Nick Reese
Note: Elms Health Care Center has been flagged for abuse in the past 12 months. We have capped this facility's overall grade accordingly.
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- Accepts Medicare 1
- Accepts Medicaid 1
- No CCRC
- Has Resident Council
- No Family Council
- For profit - Corporation
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Registered Staff Hours
Nurse Quality
While we graded this facility incredibly poorly overall, it received a fairly respectable nursing grade this year. We gave it a grade of B- in that category. The nursing rating analyzes a handful of components, however, the main consideration is the number of nurse hours per patient per week. This nursing home averages just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low figure. Lastly, nursing grades also consider quality-based metrics, such as preventing major falls. Despite not having the most impressive total nursing hours, this facility performed admirably in the metric of preventing major falls. This is generally an indicator that a place has sufficient quality controls in place. Many falls could be avoided if a facility supplies enough nurses aids to assist its patients.
Short-term Care Quality
This nursing home also didn't perform poorly in the category of short-term care. In fact, we awarded it a B- for that category, which turned out to be another one of its higher grades. Our short-term care grades are probably more meaningful for folks in need of a nursing home for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally mandates more skilled nursing. This means not only nursing services, but also physical and occupational therapy, as well as other variations of therapy. Unfortunately, this nursing home was below average in terms of its number of registered nurse and physical therapy hours provided to its patients based on the metrics we assessed. The real question is whether this adversely affected quality of care. Finally, we assessed the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their patients are able to return home so this figure is below average.
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Long-term Care Quality
This facility also didn't perform poorly in the category of long-term care. In fact, we awarded it a C for that category, which turned out to be among its more favorable scores. Our long-term care ratings are essential for individuals requiring personal care. In addition to considering the volume of care provided by nurses and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. Candidly, we were a bit concerned this facility gave the vaccine to just 87.64045 percent of its patients. Fortunately, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.
Facility Inspections
Turning to our final category of inspections, this facility received a grade that's as bad as it gets. We weight this category more heavily than our other categories. For nursing homes with bad inspection ratings, you should really focus on any severe deficiencies found on their recent inspection reports. This particular facility had 6 deficiencies on its inspection report. The only favorable thing we found is that none of the deficiencies were in the categories that suggest that they created a threat to patient safety or health. Finally, CMS cited this nursing home for possible abuse or neglect. Hopefully, its performance improves in the future, but until then we simply can't recommend this facility.
Rating Over Time
Compared to national and state averages across all facilities.
Elms Health Care Center Quality Metrics
Minimizes Pressure Ulcers
In Elms Health Care Center, 4.17% of Patients had Pressure Ulcers
This metric measures the percentage of long-term patients which suffered from pressure ulcers. Many experts believe that pressure ulcers are an barometer of a facility's nursing care quality.
Minimizes Serious Falls
In Elms Health Care Center, 0% of Patients had Serious Falls
This tells you the percent of patients that suffered from a major fall. Falls resulting in severe injury are routinely the result of poor nursing care. Better nursing protocols minimizes the number of major falls sustained by residents in a nursing home.
Minimizes Urinary Tract Infections
In Elms Health Care Center, 5.68% of Patients had UTIs
This datapoint tells you the percent of long-term stay patients who suffered from a UTI. UTI's may be an indication of a nursing home with worse hygiene protocols. Nevertheless, this statistic may also be misleading for certain nursing homes due to varying reporting standards for infections.
Appropriately Uses Anti-Psychotic Medication
In Elms Health Care Center, 0% of Patients use Anti-Psychotic Medication
This indicates the percent of patients prescribed antipsychotic medications. Antipsychotic drugs are administered to patients for a variety of medical conditions, such as Alzheimer's or other dementias. Sadly, in some situations, excessive reliance on these medications may mean that a nursing home is using these drugs to control patient behavior.
Appropriately Uses Anti-Anxiety Medication
In Elms Health Care Center, 39.53% of Patients use Anti-Anxiety Medication
This tells you the percent of patients who were given antianxiety medications. These medications are typically prescribed to residents suffering from anxiety and depression.
Managing Depression Among Residents
In Elms Health Care Center, 6.82% of Patients
This datapoint is a measure of the percentage of long-term stay patients who are showing symptoms of depression. Many would argue that this is a measure of resident quality of care.
Appropriate Vaccine Usage
In Elms Health Care Center, 93.82% of Patients
This tells you the percent of patients who were administered the pneumonia and flu vaccines. Higher vaccination rates should be standard at this point.
Residents Maintain Autonomy
In Elms Health Care Center, 20.93% of Patients
This indicates the percent of residents that required increased assistance with activities of daily living over time. Higher levels of dependence on staff for assistance with activities of daily living could indicate erosion of a patient's medical condition.
Ability to Keep Residents Mobile
In Elms Health Care Center, 16.78% of Residents
This tells you the percentage of patients who retained mobility levels over time. Optimizing mobility is often a great sign for residents' health.
Short-term Care: Rehospitalizations
In Elms Health Care Center, 16.78% of Residents Rehospitalized
This tells you the number of times residents are rehospitalized per thousand days of short-term care. There is usually a correlation between avoiding hospitalizations and a nursing home's quality of short-term rehabilitation.
Nearby Hospitals
- St Lukes Regional Medical CenterAcute Care Hospitals 15.4 miles away2720 Stone Park Boulevard Sioux City Iowa 51104Voluntary non-profit - Private(712) 279-3500
- Mercy Medical Center-Sioux CityAcute Care Hospitals 16.1 miles away801 5th St Sioux City Iowa 51101Voluntary non-profit - Private(712) 279-2010
- Sanford Vermillion HospitalCritical Access Hospitals 18.43 miles away20 South Plum Street Vermillion South Dakota 57069Voluntary non-profit - Private(605) 677-3500
Nearby Dialysis
- Fresenius Medical Care Dakota Dunes, LLC12.21 miles away357 W Tower Rd North Sioux City South Dakota 57049Dialysis Stations: 5 (605) 232-1901
- Fmc Midwest Dialysis16.73 miles away4000 Indian Hills Dr Sioux City Iowa 51108CMS Rating: 4 stars Dialysis Stations: 16 (712) 239-4333
- Siouxland Dialysis18 miles away2530 Glenn Ave. Sioux City Iowa 51106Dialysis Stations: 24 (712) 266-1000