Life Care Center of Elizabethton
1641 Highway 19e, Elizabethton TN 37643 · (423) 542-4133 · 44.49% estimated occupancy 1Updated: Aug 1, 2020 · By Sara Levinsohn
Life Care Center of Elizabethton is a nursing home located in Elizabethton, Tennessee. This city has a population of 33,689 people. Sporting an overall grade of B-, this is a decent facility. This facility has some things working in its favor. We were also pleased to discover that this nursing home was consistent in all four of our categories. More information about its category grades is available below.
Additional Details:
Accepts Medicare 1 :
Accepts Medicaid 1 : 158 Beds
CCRC :
For profit - Corporation
Resident Council:
Family Council:
Medical Staff Hours Per Patient (2019)
Facility Inspections
To pair with its relatively modest overall grade, we awarded this nursing home an A+ for our inspections rating. This score is far better than its overall rating. Perhaps the most important factor we consider in determining our inspection grades is deficiencies. Deficiencies are found on a facility's inspection reports. Facilities with better grades in this area typically dodged the more severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. While this place had some deficiencies on its report, none were major deficiencies based on CMS' scale. The fact that the deficiencies were relatively minor leaves us less concerned with this inspection report.
Long-term Care Quality
This facility's second best area ended up being long-term care. In that area, we awarded this facility a B-. In the area of long-term care, we weigh the amount of care offered by a facility, as opposed to more healthcare-oriented services. One of the datapoints we considered in addition to nursing hours was vaccines. Thankfully, this nursing home administered the pneumonia vaccination to 98.809525 percent of its residents. Unfortunately, its hospitalization rate was not quite as favorable. Here we found that this facility had 2.3 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days.
Short-term Care Quality
This facility received its next highest category grade in the category of short-term care. We awarded this facility a grade of C in this category, which is a decent grade. Short-term care grades are often employed to score a facility's rehabilitation services In order to provide good rehabilitation services, nursing homes generally need to provide better levels of skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, respiratory therapists and other types of therapists. This nursing home employs both physical therapists and registered nurses. Not all facilities employ these skilled professionals. Lastly, we looked at the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. It performed decently in this area, with 46 percent of its patients returning home.
Nurse Quality
The last area we graded is nursing. We gave this facility a grade of C in this area. We looked at the qualifications of nurses working for the facility, as well as the quantity of time those nurses were with patients, in determining our score in this area. This nursing home provides 2.9 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a much lower figure than we are used to seeing. Lastly, despite not having the most impressive total nursing hours per resident, this nursing home actually performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is usually an indicator that a facility has sufficient quality controls in place.
Overall Rating Over Time
Compared to national and state averages across all facilities.
Life Care Center of Elizabethton Quality Metrics
Minimizes Pressure Ulcers
This is the percentage of patients who suffered from a pressure ulcer. Pressure ulcers are damage to the skin due to staying in the same position for an excessive period of time.
Percent of Patients with Pressure Ulcers
Lower is Better
Minimizes Serious Falls
This indicates the percent of residents who have had a fall which caused serious injury.
Percent of Patients with Serious Falls
Lower is Better
Minimizes Urinary Tract Infections
This is the percent of residents that sustained a urinary tract infection. These infections may be associated with poor hygiene.
Percent of Patients with UTIs
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Psychotic Medication
This is the percent of residents given antipsychotic drugs. Antipsychotic drugs are given to patients for many medical conditions, including dementia. Sadly, in limited cases, high levels of antipsychotic drug use may mean that a nursing home is using these medications to control patient behavior.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Anxiety Medication
This is the percent of residents who were prescribed antianxiety drugs. These drugs are commonly given to residents experiencing anxiety or depression.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Managing Depression Among Residents
This indicates the percentage of patients demonstrating signs of depression.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriate Vaccine Usage
Measures the percentage of long-term patients that were administered the pneumonia and flu vaccines. Respiratory viruses can be very dangerous for seniors, making these vaccines critical to patient well-being.
Percent of Patients
Higher is Better
Residents Maintain Autonomy
This datapoint is a measure of the percentage of long-term residents that needed more assistance with activities of daily living over time. Activities of daily living include activities such as dressing and taking a bath.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Ability to Keep Residents Mobile
Measures the percentage of long-term care patients who remained mobile levels.
Percentage of Residents
Higher is Better
Hospitalizations
This metric tracks the number of times residents are hospitalized per thousand days of patient care. Staying out of the hospital is key to maintaining the physical health of nursing home patients.
Hospitalizations per 1,000 resident days
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Rehospitalizations
This metric tracks the number of rehospitalizations per thousand days of short-term care.
Percentage of Residents Rehospitalized
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: ER Visits
This is the number of times residents are sent to the emergency room per 1,000 days of short-term patient care. There is typically a correlation between having fewer emergency room visits and the quality of rehabilitation.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Facilitates Functional Improvement
This is a measure of the percentage of short-term care residents that experienced functional improvements, such as with activities of daily living. Many argue that this is a reasonable measure of a nursing home's rehabilitation performance.
Percentage of Resident
Higher is Better