Swope Ridge Geriatric Center

Even though we graded this facility extremely poorly overall, it received a more respectable long-term care rating this year. We gave it a grade of B- in that category. Our long-term care grade assesses a facility's assistance with daily living rather than the skilled therapy and medical services that are critical to a rehabilitation facility. On top of considering the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. We found that this nursing home administered the vaccine to a relatively low 85.98726 percent of its residents, which is not a very encouraging sign. Nevertheless, this place excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. It had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

As it turns out, its inspection reports were not the source of this nursing home's abysmal overall grade. In fact, it received a C in this category. Inspection ratings are tied to several items located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Deficiencies are a key item to look for on these inspections. Severe deficiencies indicate a risk to patient safety. This facility was hit with 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to find that none were category G through L deficiencies. This means it avoided the more significant categories of deficiencies. Unfortunately, we also need to draw your attention to the fact that this facility received significant government fines in recent years.

This nursing home also didn't perform terribly in the area of nursing. In fact, we awarded it a grade of C for that category, which is another one its better scores. Our nursing rating is based on many datapoints. The most heavily weighted factor is the number of hours nurses spent with residents. This place averages 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day, which is not an impressive total. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this place fared better in some of the quality measures we assessed. In fact, it scored well in terms of avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls.

Moving on to our next area, this facility really did not fare very well here either. Due to a rock bottom grade of F in short-term care, this is just about as as uninspiring as it gets. In the area of short-term care, we endeavor to assess indicators of a facility's rehabilitation services. We assess a nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses and physical and occupational therapists. With its abysmal grade in this category, we were not shocked to learn this nursing home offers substantially fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per patient than most other facilities. The last measure we assessed in this category is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We discovered that just 4.6 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home, which is well below average. The combination of these subpar statistics doomed this facility's short-term care score.