Emerald Nursing & Rehab - Omaha

Even though we were not high on this nursing home overall, we gave it a B- for our nursing rating. This score is more respectable than its overall rating. Our nursing score is largely based on a nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This place provided just 0.4 hours of nursing care per patient daily. This is a relatively low total compared to most other facilities. Lastly, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics. Although this facility got docked a bit for its nursing hours, it excelled in some of these quality metrics. With less than five percent of its residents experiencing pressure ulcers, it performed well in this area. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as having a protocol of moving a patient at least once a day.

This nursing home's short-term care grade turns out to be one of its more favorable grades. The facility was awarded a C in this area. Short-term care scores are meaningful for patients seeking rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically requires additional highly-skilled nursing. Skilled nursing means a broad scope of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other types of therapy. Unfortunately, this facility was below average in terms of its quantity of registered nurse and physical therapy hours provided to its patients based on the metrics we assessed. The important question is whether this also affected quality of care. Finally, we looked at the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 4 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 earned mediocre inspections in recent years. We gave them a grade of C in this area. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in computing our inspection scores. One critical factor is deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of these deficiencies is arguably more meaningful than the number of deficiencies, as some deficiencies are relatively minor. This place was hit with 5 deficiencies on its government inspection report, but we were relieved to find that none were in any of the categories labeled G through L. This indicates that it avoided the more ominous classes of deficiencies. Unfortunately, we also need to draw your attention to the fact that this facility received significant government fines in recent years.

The final area we graded was long-term care. It received an abysmal F in this area, which is an abysmal grade. When nursing homes receive a score in this range in this category it typically means the nursing home didn't perform well in our measures relating to patient care. In addition to considering the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home gave the vaccine to 92.34042 percent of its patients. This is a bit less than we anticipated but still a reasonably acceptable percentage. To our surprise, this place was actually able to limit hospitalizations. With only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this facility has less hospitalizations than the average nursing home. This is its best feature in this category.