Life Care Center of South Hill
2508 7th St Southeast, Puyallup WA 98374 · (253) 661-5948 · 82.6% estimated occupancy 1Updated: Aug 1, 2020 · By Nick Lata
Life Care Center of South Hill is one of five nursing homes in Puyallup, Washington. This nursing home received an elite overall score of A-, making it ranked among the top facilities in the city. This truly is impressive given that the city has some quality nursing homes. This is really as good of a nursing home as you're going to find. This place's strong profile was highlighted by its short-term care rating, which is addressed in the next paragraph.
Additional Details:
Accepts Medicare 1 :
Accepts Medicaid 1 : 100 Beds
CCRC :
For profit - Corporation
Resident Council:
Family Council:
Medical Staff Hours Per Patient (2019)
Short-term Care Quality
In addition to faring well in its overall grade, this nursing home earned an excellent short-term care rating. In fact, we gave it a grade of A in that category. Our short-term care grades are arguably more critical for individuals requiring rehabilitation services. Rehabilitation typically mandates higher levels of skilled nursing. Skilled nursing means not just nursing services, but also physical and occupational therapy, as well as other types of therapy. This nursing home provided more physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most facilities. This is what we like to find when assessing a nursing home in this category. The last measure we looked at in this area is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We found that it fared as well as just about any nursing home in Washington in this area with 74.3 percent of its patients returning home.
Facility Inspections
Turning to inspections, this nursing home excelled in that area, which is based on the nursing home's inspections. We awarded it an A for that category. Perhaps the most significant factor we consider in computing our inspection grades is deficiencies. These deficiencies can be found on a facility's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes with higher scores in this area typically dodged the more severe deficiencies involving patient abuse or death. While this place had a few deficiencies on its inspection report, none of them were severe based on CMS' scale. Remember that deficiency-free inspections are uncommon in the industry.
Nurse Quality
Among its many impressive grades, this facility received an excellent nursing grade. In fact, we gave it a grade of A- in that category. In determining a facility's nursing rating, we consider the number of hours nurses are with patients and the level of skill of the nurses. With 5.1 hours of nursing care per patient per day, this place surpassed the vast majority of facilities. Finally, this place also excelled in the quality-based metrics we looked at. For example, it performed as well as any nursing home the nation in the area of avoiding major falls and pressure ulcers. We view these metrics as reliable measures of the quality of nursing care provided.
Long-term Care Quality
The next area we graded is this nursing home's weakest area. However, even its worst category would be a highlight for most nursing homes. In fact, we awarded it an above average grade of B in our long-term care category. For patients seeking a permanent place to live as opposed to skilled nursing, long-term care is a very important category. This facility's vaccination statistics weren't as favorable some of its other statistics in this area, such as its nursing hours. This facility administered the pneumonia vaccine to just 83.333336 percent of its patients. We would love to see some improvement in this area in the future. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.
Overall Rating Over Time
Compared to national and state averages across all facilities.
Life Care Center of South Hill Quality Metrics
Minimizes Serious Falls
This tells you the percentage of long-term residents that had a fall which caused major injury. This is one of the statistics we use in calculating our nursing scores.
Percent of Patients with Serious Falls
Lower is Better
Minimizes Urinary Tract Infections
This datapoint indicates the percent of long-term stay patients that have had a urinary tract infection. UTI's could be an indicator of lower quality nursing care. Nevertheless, this statistic could also be misleading for some nursing homes due to inconsistent reporting standards for UTI's.
Percent of Patients with UTIs
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Psychotic Medication
This indicates the percent of patients who were prescribed antipsychotic medications. While antipsychotic medications may be vital to many residents, it is important to ensure these drugs are being used only where medically required. In limited cases, excessive reliance on these medications may suggest a nursing home is using these medications to subdue residents.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Anxiety Medication
This metric tells you the percentage of long-term patients taking antianxiety medications.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Managing Depression Among Residents
This is the percentage of patients who are demonstrating signs of depression. High rates of depression could imply worse patient care.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriate Vaccine Usage
This datapoint measures the percentage of long-term stay residents who were given the pneumonia and flu vaccines. Respiratory viruses can be deadly for seniors, making these vaccines important for resident well-being.
Percent of Patients
Higher is Better
Residents Maintain Autonomy
This is a measure of the percentage of long-term residents who required increased assistance with activities of daily living over time. Activities of daily living include activities such as dressing and bathing. Some experts would argue that this is a reliable measure of a resident's well-being.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: ER Visits
Measures the number of times residents are sent to the emergency room per thousand days of short-term care. Avoiding emergency medical situations is one way to gauge short-term care.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Facilitates Functional Improvement
This tells you the percentage of short-term residents that saw functional improvements, such as enhanced ability to perform activities of daily living.
Percentage of Resident
Higher is Better