Ennis Care Center

While we gave this place a weak overall score, we awarded it a fairly respectable score in the category of inspections, where we gave it a B-. This was certainly better than its other category grades. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in calculating our inspection ratings. One of those factors is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of the deficiencies is arguably more important than the number of deficiencies, as some of these can be quite minor. Fortunately, although this facility had some minor dings on its inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those found in categories G through L. This tells you CMS didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent 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.

One of this nursing home's more respectable category scores was in the area of short-term care. This turned out to be its second most respectable category. In that category, we gave this nursing home a B-. Short-term care scores are vital for individuals requiring rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally mandates more skilled nursing. Skilled nursing means a wide spectrum of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. We were surprised to find that this nursing home was below average in the two key staffing areas we focus on. It provided fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other nursing homes. It is important to determine whether this is adversely impacting the quality of care. The last metric we assessed in this category is the number of residents who ultimately were able to return home from the facility. We found that just 6.2 percent of this facility's patients returned home. Unfortunately, this was below the national average.

This facilities next best area was long-term care. We gave it a grade of B- in this area. This is essentially a slightly below average score in this category. In a long-term care setting, the facility's primary goal is to keep patients as healthy and safe as possible. This is different than skilled nursing or short-term care where the goal is to rehabilitate patients. One of the factors we considered in addition to nursing hours was vaccines. Thankfully, this facility administered the pneumonia vaccination to 100 percent of its patients. This place also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. It had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

The final category we analyzed is nursing. We gave it a lowly F for this area, which is a bottom of the barrel score. Nursing scores are based largely on quality and quantity of nursing care. This particular place averaged a meager 0.3 hours of nursing care per patient on a daily basis. This figure is well below the national average. Finally, we also looked at some nursing quality measures in calculating our nursing ratings. This nursing home fared well in the area of avoiding major falls and pressure ulcers.