Morrell Nursing Center

While we did not rate this facility well overall, we would like to point out its decent government inspection reports in recent years. We awarded it a somewhat respectable grade of B- in that category. These inspection ratings take several factors into consideration, including deficiencies and substantiated complaints. You can learn more about each of these items by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. 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. 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.

The second highest area we gave this facility in any category came in the category of short-term care, where we awarded it a grade of B-. In our short-term care score, we endeavor to forge a valuable measure for rehabilitation. In doing so, we assess a facility's offerings of skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as speech therapy. Unfortunately, we found that this place provided fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than most other facilities. The more important thing is determining what effect this had on quality of care. Lastly, we considered the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 5.5 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their residents are able to return home so this figure is below average.

This facility's next best area ended up being its long-term care score, where it received a B-. For prospective residents seeking a permanent place to live rather than skilled nursing, long-term care is a very important category. After assessing the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we turned to the nursing home's vaccination data. We were optimistic to discover that this facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents for pneumonia. This facility was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

This nursing home's weakest category was nursing, which is the last category we assessed. In this category, we awarded this nursing home a grade of D. Our nursing grade considers a host of subcategories. The most heavily weighted one is the amount of time nurses spent with patients. This facility provided just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low total compared to most nursing homes. On top of ranking below average in nursing hours per resident, this nursing home also had poor scores in the quality-based metrics we looked at in computing our nursing grades. We looked at the percent of residents experiencing pressure ulcers and major falls. This nursing home was at approximately 150 percent of the national average in both of these statistics. This is a bad sign when you consider that many bed sores and falls are believed to be preventable with better nursing care. These statistics helped pull down this facility's nursing rating significantly.