Life Care Center of Copper Basin

While we did not rate this nursing home well overall, we wanted to note its decent government inspection reports in recent years. We gave it a relatively respectable grade of B- in that area. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in calculating our inspection grades. One key factor is deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of deficiencies is arguably more meaningful than the number of deficiencies, as some deficiencies end up being relatively insignificant. While this facility had a few minor dings on its report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones found in categories G through L. This tells you that the government inspectors didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Finally, CMS flagged this nursing home for possible abuse or neglect. This is not what you want to see. We advise you to direct your search elsewhere.

We also want to point out that this facility received a decent grade in our nursing category. We awarded it a grade of B- in the area. Our nursing rating is primarily based on the nursing home's nurse staffing. This facility provides only 0.4 hours of nursing care per patient per day. This is a somewhat discouraging figure which is well below the national average. Lastly, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics. Although this place got dinged a bit for nursing hours per resident, it excelled in a few of these quality metrics. With fewer than five percent of its patients suffering from pressure ulcers, it fared well in this subcategory. This is often a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as employing a system of moving patients at least once a day.

This nursing home's third most favorable category is short-term care. We awarded it a grade of B- in this area. This is basically a middle of the road score in this category. Short-term care grades are vital for prospective residents in need of rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually utilizes higher levels of skilled nursing. This includes a vast scope of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. In this place's case, we were surprised to learn that it actually provides less registered nurse and physical therapist hours per patient than the average facility. The hope is that this does not adversely impact the quality of care. Finally, we considered the percentage of patients who eventually returned home from this facility. We found that 5.9 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home. This figure was actually quite a bit below average.

The last category we graded is long-term care. We gave this nursing home a C in that area. For prospective patients in need of a permanent residence rather than skilled nursing, long-term care grades are a key measure. After assessing the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we then looked at the facility's vaccination records. We were optimistic to discover that this nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its residents for pneumonia. Lastly, this place was also able to limit hospitalizations. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.