Mescalero Care Center

Although we were down on this nursing home overall, we awarded it a B+ for our nursing rating. Our nursing score is primarily based on the nursing home's nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also looked at certain nursing quality measures in computing our nursing grades. These include minimizing residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. We look at these metrics as predictive measures of the caliber of nursing care offered, since better care tends to reduce these problems.

This nursing home's next best category is short-term care. We awarded it a grade of B- in this area. This is basically a middle of the road grade in this area. Short-term care grades are based on a nursing home's quantity of skilled nursing services. This includes a wide spectrum of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, not to mention other forms of therapy. Unfortunately, we found that this facility provided fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other nursing homes. The more important thing is determining what effect this had on the quality of care. The last metric we considered in this category is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. This place was respectable in this area with 45.3 percent of its patients returning home.

The third category we analyzed is long-term care. In that area, we gave this nursing home a decent grade of C. In our long-term care rating, we analyze the quantity of care offered by a facility, along with some quality metrics. Once we concluded our assessment of the quantity of nursing care, we next considered the facility's vaccination data. Candidly, we were a bit concerned this nursing home vaccinated a relatively low 61.01695 percent of its patients against pneumonia. Nevertheless, this place was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

In our final category of inspections, this facility received an abysmal grade. We weight this grade more heavily than our other categories. We would advise paying close attention to any deficiencies on a nursing home's inspection reports when it receives this bad of an inspection grade. We suggest you pay close attention to the level of severity of those deficiencies. This particular facility was assessed multiple category J through L deficiencies, which represent the worst possible deficiencies. These categories mean that the government inspectors uncovered deficiencies which put resident safety or health in immediate danger. Lastly, we also want to draw your attention to the fact that this nursing home was assessed significant government fines recently totaling more than $100,000. This usually means that a nursing home's poor track record has been an issue for several years.