Pittsburg Nursing Center

This facility earned a solid overall grade as described above, but we really wanted to point out its excellent inspections in recent years. We gave them an A- in this category. Our inspection grades are based on several pieces of information found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Facilities that excel in this area tend to have very few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these nursing homes generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. This nursing home received 6 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be major deficiencies. This tells you that the inspectors didn't deem any of the deficiencies to be an imminent risk to resident health or safety. A couple of minor deficiencies should not stop you from considering a nursing home.

This facility also was given a positive long-term care grade. Indeed, we gave them a grade of B in that area, which is one of our better. When facilities receive this type of score in this category it is typically a good sign for patient care and indicates that the place is well-staffed with nurses and aids. After assessing the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination record. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents against pneumonia, which is better than the vast majority of nursing homes. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

This nursing home's nursing grade appears to be one of its better features. The facility received a grade of C in this category. When calculating our nursing scores, we assess both staffing levels and the skill levels of the nurses. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident daily. This is a relatively low total compared to most other facilities. Finally, we also looked at some nursing quality measures. While this nursing home got docked a bit for nursing hours, it excelled in a few of these quality-based metrics. With less than five percent of its patients suffering from pressure ulcers, it did well in this statistic. This is often an indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by having a protocol of moving a patient at least once a day.

The last category we assessed is short-term care. We gave it an F in this category, which is a rock bottom score. This is clearly a significant concern. Our short-term care scores are based in part on a nursing home's quantity of skilled skilled healthcare professionals. This means a broad range of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, not to mention other types of therapy. Based on its poor score in this category, we weren't shocked to learn this nursing home offers substantially fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than most other nursing homes. Finally, we looked at the percentage of patients who were able to return to the community from this facility. This definitely wasn't a strength for this nursing home. We found that just 2.9 percent of this facility's patients returned home. At most nursing homes, about half of their patients are able to return home so this is well below average.