Manorcare Health Services-Sinking Spring

Manorcare Health Services-Sinking Spring is a very-large facility in Reading, Pennsylvania. This is a good nursing home. We awarded it an overall grade of B, which is a favorable grade. This grade is right in line with the city grade in Reading. This facility is better in some categories than others, but it did not have any poor grades in any of our four major categories. More information about these categories can be found below.

To go along with its favorable overall score, we awarded this facility an A+ for the area of inspections. Perhaps the most important factor we consider in calculating our inspection ratings is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a facility's inspection reports. Facilities with better scores in this area most likely avoided the most severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Even some of the best nursing homes receive an occasional ding on their inspection report.

This facility's second best category was its nursing grade, where it received a grade of B-. The nursing rating consists of quite a few subcategories, but the paramount one is the level of nurse hours per patient per week. This nursing home averages just 3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low figure. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this nursing home surprisingly excelled in some of the quality measures we assessed. It performed well in terms of avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls. Many consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care. In some cases, the quality of nursing care is every bit as important as the quantity of hours of care offered.

We also gave this facility a decent grade in the area of long-term care, where it received a B-. For residents seeking a permanent residence as opposed to skilled nursing, long-term care grades are a key measure. On top of looking at the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 77.234634 percent of its residents. This is pretty significantly below average. On a more positive note, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. With just 1.65 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this facility had less hospitalizations than many nursing homes.

The last category we graded was short-term care. In that category, we gave this nursing home a grade of B-. Our short-term care scores are based on a nursing home's quantity of skilled nursing services. This includes a vast spectrum of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, in addition to other types of therapy. We were pleased to find that this nursing home employs both registered nurses and physical therapists. The same can't be said for all nursing homes. Lastly, we assessed the number of patients that returned home from this facility and found that this facility performed better here. In fact, this facility fared better than most nursing homes in the nation with 55.6 percent of its residents returning home.