Kutztown Manor

While we were fairly low on this nursing home overall, we awarded it a grade of A- for our inspections rating. This score is significantly more impressive than the facility's overall grade. Inspection scores are tied to pieces of information found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Deficiencies are an important item to look for on these reports. Most importantly, you should avoid nursing homes with severe deficiencies linked to endangerment of patients. While this facility had some minor dings on its inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those found in 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 safety or health. A few minor deficiencies are not necessarily the end of the world.

This nursing home's long-term care rating turns out to be one of its better features. The nursing home received a C in this area. Our long-term care scores are based on the nursing home's volume of nursing care. This means a vast range of personal care services, ranging from assistance with activities of daily living to routine healthcare services. Once we concluded our assessment of the quantity of care provided by nurses, we then analyzed the nursing home's vaccination statistics. We were pleased to learn that this facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients for pneumonia. This nursing home was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0.03 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

This nursing home received its third most favorable category score in the area of short-term care. We gave this facility a C in this area, which is a reasonably acceptable score. In the area of short-term care, we strive to evaluate measures of a facility's rehabilitation. We assess a nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as the ones performed by registered nurses and various therapists. In this facility's case, we were surprised to learn that it actually provides less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than the average facility. The hope is always that this does not adversely impact the quality of care. Finally, we assessed the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 5.2 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.

The final area we looked at is nursing. This facility received a bottom of the barrel grade of F in this category. In calculating our nursing ratings, we factor in both nursing hours and the skill levels of the nurses. This place averaged just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is well below average. To go along with its subpar totals in the area of nursing hours per resident, this nursing home also did not fare as well in the quality-based measures we looked at in computing our nursing grades. We looked at the percentage of residents experiencing pressure ulcers and major falls. This place had more falls and pressure ulcers than the average facility. This may be a bad sign when you consider that many bed sores and falls are preventable with better nursing care. Unfortunately, these scores pulled down this facility's nursing rating significantly.