Elroy Health Services

Although we did not rate this facility favorably overall, we want to point out its relatively solid government inspections in recent years. We gave it a B+ in this category, which was much better than its overall score. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in computing our inspection ratings. One of those factors is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of the deficiencies is arguably more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some are relatively minor. Fortunately, although this facility had a few minor dings on its report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This means the inspectors didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. A few minor deficiencies aren't necessarily the end of the world.

We also awarded this facility a grade of B- for our nursing rating. Our nursing grade is mostly tied to a nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides only 0.3 hours of nursing care per patient daily. This is a somewhat concerning figure which is well below the national average. Finally, despite not having the most impressive total nursing hours, this facility performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is usually a good indicator that a nursing home has quality controls in place.

The third area we analyzed is short-term care, where this facility received a B- in this category. Short-term care grades are typically used to judge a facility's performance with rehabilitation To provide highly graded rehabilitation services, nursing homes generally must offer better levels of highly skilled nursing. These types of services include registered nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists and other highly skilled individuals. Unfortunately, we found that this facility provided fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than most other facilities. The more important thing is determining what effect this had on the quality of care. The last metric we considered in this area is the number of patients who eventually returned home from the nursing home. We found that just 4.3 percent of this facility's patients returned home.

The last area we looked at was long-term care. This nursing home was given an abysmal grade of F in that area. If you are seeking services other than rehabilitation, you should take a close look at each nursing home's long-term care grades. Once we looked at the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination records. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is more than the vast majority of nursing homes. Surprisingly, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. With only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this nursing home has less hospitalizations than most nursing homes. Sadly, some of its other scores in this category weren't as favorable as these.