Mission at Bear River Rehabilitation Center

Even though we didn't rate this nursing home well overall, we want to acknowledge it received a decent grade of B- in nursing. Our nursing category includes several components, many of which are based on quantities of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a much lower figure than we are used to seeing. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics. Although this nursing home got dinged a bit for nursing hours, it actually excelled in a few of these quality-based metrics. With fewer than five percent of its residents experiencing pressure ulcers, it performed well in this area. This is generally an indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as by having a protocol of moving a resident even once per day.

This facility's next highest category turned out to be short-term care. In that area, we awarded this facility a grade of B-. In determining our short-term care ratings, we size up a facility's levels of highly skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists speech therapists and other licensed professionals. This area is generally a meaningful measure of the nursing home's rehabilitation services. Unfortunately, we found that this nursing home provided fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than most other nursing homes. The key is determining what bearing this had on quality of care. The final metric we assessed in this area is the number of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return home. We discovered that just 6.3 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home, which is actually below average.

We also awarded this nursing home a respectable grade in the area of long-term care, where it received a B-. Long-term care grades assess a facility's personal care rather than the highly skilled therapy and healthcare services that are critical to a skilled nursing facility. On top of considering the volume of care provided by nurses and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 93.10345 percent of its residents. This is somewhat below what we expected but still a decent figure. Nevertheless, this place excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

This nursing home did not receive a favorable inspection grade. We gave it a just D in this category. Inspection ratings relate to a facility's inspections. Inspection grades weigh a host of factors found on a nursing home's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we consider is the number and severity of deficiencies. This particular nursing home had 3 deficiencies on its inspection report. The only positive thing we found is that none of these deficiencies were in the categories that suggest they posed a risk to patient health or safety. Lastly, this facility was flagged by CMS for possible abuse or neglect. We prefer to avoid facilities with this designation. Please do your best to find an alternative nursing home.