Life Care Center of Casper

Life Care Center of Casper is one of just a few facilities located in Casper, Wyoming. Featuring an overall grade of A-, this facility is one of the more impressive nursing homes we looked at. We couldn't find many negative things to say about this place. Its ratings are impeccable. This nursing home's impressive report card was highlighted by its short-term care score, which is addressed in the next section.

We also wanted to emphasize the fact that this facility received an impressive grade of A in our short-term care category. In our short-term care grade, we attempt to forge a valuable gauge for rehabilitation. In doing so, we look at the facility's scope of skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as occupational therapy. This nursing home is above the national average both in terms of its quantity of physical therapy and registered nurse hours provided to its residents. These are generally good indicators of quality short-term care. Lastly, we looked at the percentage of patients who who were able to eventually return home from this nursing home. We found that it fared better than most nursing homes with 54.1 percent of its residents returning home.

Adding to its impressive category grades, this nursing home also excelled in the area of inspections, where it received an A. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in calculating our inspection ratings. One key factor is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of these deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some deficiencies are quite insignificant. While this facility had some deficiencies on its report, none of them were serious based on CMS' deficiency scale. Remember that deficiency-free inspection reports are uncommon in this industry.

In addition, this facility also received favorable nursing grades this year. In fact, we awarded them one of our better scores in that area, with a grade of B+. Nursing scores are tied to nurse staffing levels. This facility offers 3.6 hours of nursing care per resident on a daily basis, of which more than one hour was provided by registered nurses. This is one of the most highly skilled levels of nurses. In calculating our nursing grades, we attach more significance to hours performed by registered or licensed nurses. Finally, we also looked at some quality-based measures in this category. This facility fared well in some of the quality-based metrics we assessed. For example, in terms of the number of its residents suffering from pressure ulcers, this facility performed better than the national average. This is generally an indicator that a facility has reliable quality controls in place. Pressure ulcers can many times be prevented with better nursing care.

The next category we graded is long-term care. In this category, we gave this nursing home a favorable grade of B. Nursing homes that excel in this category typically are well-staffed and provide extensive hands on care to residents. Once we looked at the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we next considered the facility's vaccination records. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its residents for pneumonia, which is much higher than the vast majority of nursing homes. Lastly, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. Although it had 2.22 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, its risk adjusted statistic was better than the majority of nursing homes since it had some more complex patients.