Heritage Health-El Paso

In addition to being a respectable facility overall, this facility really excelled in the area of inspections, where it earned an A. Few nursing homes performed better in this category. These inspection ratings weigh several factors, including deficiencies, substantiated complaints and federal fines. You can find more information about each of these issues by reviewing copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Based on this, we had a generally positive view of this nursing home's recent inspections.

One of the other reasons we rated this nursing home so highly is that it earned a very impressive nursing grade. In that area, we awarded this nursing home an B-. There are a number of subcategories included in this grade. Most of the datapoints relate to the quantity and quality of nurse staffing. This place provides only 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident daily. This is a somewhat uninspiring figure as it is well below the national average. Finally, we also assessed some nursing quality-based metrics. While this facility got dinged a bit for nursing hours per resident, it excelled in some of these quality measures. With less than five percent of its patients experiencing pressure ulcers, it performed well in this metric. This is often a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as employing a policy of moving patients at least once a day.

We also awarded this nursing home a middle of the pack score in the category of short-term care, where it received a B-. Our short-term care scores are critical for prospective residents looking for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually utilizes more skilled nursing services. This means a broad range of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. In this facility's case, we were surprised to learn that it actually provides less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per patient than a typical facility. The final metric we looked at in this area is the number of patients who eventually returned home from the nursing home. We found that just 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home. This figure was below average.

This facility's least impressive area is long-term care, which is the final area we scored. In this area, we awarded this facility a grade of just D. In a long-term care environment, 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. Once we concluded our assessment of the quantity of care provided by nurses, we then analyzed the facility's vaccination records. We were optimistic to learn that this nursing home vaccinated 99 percent of its patients against pneumonia. Surprisingly, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. With only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this facility had fewer hospitalizations than the majority of nursing homes. Unfortunately, some of its other scores in the category were not as favorable as these.