Timber Ridge Health Center
1555 East End Boulevard Plains Twp, Wilkes Barre PA 18711 · (570) 826-1011 · 92.83% estimated occupancy 1Updated: Aug 1, 2020 · By Nick Lata
Located in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, Timber Ridge Health Center is one of eight nursing homes in this city. With an overall rating of F, we consider this to be a lower end facility. Based on our assessment, you would be better off to steer clear of this nursing home. More information on this facility's category grades may be found below. Its best category was inspections, which is discussed in the next paragraph.
Additional Details:
Accepts Medicare 1 :
Accepts Medicaid 1 : 180 Beds
CCRC :
For profit - Corporation
Resident Council:
Family Council:
Medical Staff Hours Per Patient (2019)
Facility Inspections
Although we gave this facility a terrible overall grade, we awarded it a B- for our inspections rating. In fact, the facility received very impressive inspection report this year. Inspection ratings are tied to items found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Deficiencies are an important item to look for on these reports. Severe deficiencies indicate a threat to resident safety. This place was hit with 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but fortunately none were considered to be severe. This tells you that CMS did not consider any of the deficiencies an imminent threat to resident 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.
Short-term Care Quality
This nursing home's next most respectable category was short-term care, but even there it earned just a D in that area. This turns out to be a well below average grade. Short-term care grades are often used to judge a nursing home's performance with rehabilitation. To provide quality rehabilitation services, nursing homes generally need to have higher levels of skilled nursing. These types of services include registered nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists and other highly trained professionals. In this nursing home's case, we found that it provides less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than the average facility. Lastly, we considered the percentage of residents that eventually returned home from this facility. This nursing home didn't fare well here either. In fact, we found that just 35.7 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home.
Long-term Care Quality
Sadly, this facility's next highest category was long-term care. As it turns out, with a grade of D in this category, it still performed relatively badly. If you are seeking anything other than rehabilitation, you should take a close look at each facility's long-term care scores. One of the statistics we considered in addition to nurse's aid hours was vaccines. Fortunately, this facility provided the pneumonia vaccine to 99.142365 percent of its residents. To our surprise, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. With only 1.65 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this nursing home had less hospitalizations than many nursing homes. Sadly, some of its other scores in this category weren't as favorable as these.
Nurse Quality
The final category we assessed was nursing, ended up being this nursing home's worst category. We awarded this nursing home a D in this area. The nursing rating features numerous data points. The most heavily weighted factor is the amount of time nurses spend with patients. This particular nursing home provided 3.8 hours of nursing care per resident per day, which is below average. This facility also had abysmal marks in some of the quality-based metrics to pair with its weak nursing hour totals. We looked at the percentage of patients suffering pressure ulcers and we were very disappointed. This nursing home was at approximately 1.5 times the national average in this statistic. This is likely a bad sign in light of the fact that so many pressure ulcers could be avoided with better nursing care. This statistic helped pull down this facility's nursing rating quite a bit.
Overall Rating Over Time
Compared to national and state averages across all facilities.
Timber Ridge Health Center Quality Metrics
Minimizes Pressure Ulcers
This is the percentage of patients who have had a pressure ulcer. Pressure ulcers, also referred to as bed sores, are routinely caused by patients not being moved frequently enough. Better nursing care reduces the number of pressure ulcers sustained by residents in a nursing home.
Percent of Patients with Pressure Ulcers
Lower is Better
Minimizes Serious Falls
This datapoint gauges the percent of long-term patients which had falls leading to serious injury. Falls can arise for a variety of reasons, but high rates of major falls could be a sign of poor nursing care.
Percent of Patients with Serious Falls
Lower is Better
Minimizes Urinary Tract Infections
This figure is an indication of the percentage of long-term stay residents who have had urinary tract infections. While a higher rate of these infections could reflect poorly on a facility's hygiene protocols, it can be difficult to compare different facilities due to nursing homes having reporting standards.
Percent of Patients with UTIs
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Psychotic Medication
This is the percent of residents who were given antipsychotic medications. Antipsychotic medications are prescribed to residents for many medical conditions, such as cognitive disorders. Sadly, in some situations, increased usage of these drugs may indicate a nursing home is using these drugs to subdue residents.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Anxiety Medication
This metric is an indication of the percentage of long-term residents receiving antianxiety medications.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Managing Depression Among Residents
This tells you the percent of patients who are exhibiting signs of depression.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriate Vaccine Usage
This is the percent of residents that received the pneumonia and flu vaccines. Higher vaccination rates should be demanded by residents.
Percent of Patients
Higher is Better
Residents Maintain Autonomy
This metric is a measure of the percentage of long-term patients that required more assistance with activities of daily living over time. ADL's include activities such as getting dressed and eating.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Ability to Keep Residents Mobile
This is the percent of patients that were able to retain mobility over time. Preserving mobility is often a good sign for residents' health.
Percentage of Residents
Higher is Better
Hospitalizations
This datapoint measures the number of times residents are hospitalized per 1,000 days of patient care.
Hospitalizations per 1,000 resident days
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Rehospitalizations
Measures the number of times residents are rehospitalized per thousand days of short-term care.
Percentage of Residents Rehospitalized
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: ER Visits
This datapoint measures the number of times residents are sent to the emergency room per 1,000 days of short-term patient care.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Facilitates Functional Improvement
Measures the percentage of short-term stay patients who saw functional improvements.
Percentage of Resident
Higher is Better