Epione Pavilion

Although we were not high on this facility overall, we gave it a B for our nursing rating. This score is much more impressive than the facility's overall grade. Nursing ratings are based largely on quantity of nursing care available. This nursing home provides 0.2 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics and this facility excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any facility the state in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can typically be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as employing a policy of moving a resident at least once a day.

This nursing home's second best category was short-term care. We awarded it a B- in this category. This is basically a middle of the pack grade in this area. Our short-term care grade is commonly employed to assess a facility's rehabilitation services. In order to have quality rehabilitation services, nursing homes generally need to offer better levels of skilled nursing. These types of services include registered nurses, physical therapists, respiratory therapists and other highly trained professionals. We were surprised to find that this facility was below average in the two key staffing areas we looked at. In fact, it provided fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than most other facilities. Finally, we looked at the percentage of residents who who were able to eventually return home from this nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home. This figure was actually well below the national average.

Unfortunately, this facility didn't receive glowing inspections in recent years. We gave it a grade of just D for our inspections rating. Our inspection ratings factor in many items found on the facility's inspection reports. If you see severe deficiencies on the inspection reports, this is typically a bad sign. Severe deficiencies indicate a threat to patient safety. This particular facility had 2 deficiencies by government inspectors. The only favorable thing we found is that none of its deficiencies were in the categories that suggest they posed a threat to resident safety or health. Finally, we also need to draw your attention to the fact that this facility was assessed large government fines recently of over $100,000. This generally signifies that a poor track record spanned multiple years.

Switching gears to our last category, this facility really did not fare well in this area either. With an abysmal grade of F in long-term care, this is about as as uninspiring as it gets. Nursing homes that receive this type of grade in this category may not provide the kind of consistent 24/7 care that some other facilities offer. After considering the amount of nursing care, we then looked at the facility's vaccination record. Frankly, we were a bit bothered by the fact that this nursing home vaccinated a relatively low 90 percent of its patients against pneumonia. To our surprise, this facility was actually able to limit hospitalizations. With just 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this facility has less hospitalizations than the average nursing home. This is its best score in this category.