Wheeler Nursing & Rehabilitation

While we graded this facility incredibly poorly overall, it received a fairly respectable inspection report this year. As a result, it received a decent grade in that category with a score of C. We believe that one of the most important factors in evaluating an inspection report is deficiencies. In this regard, we especially look at the severity of the deficiencies. This nursing home was hit with 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none were in categories G through L. This indicates the government inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies to present an imminent threat to resident health or safety. Finally, this facility was cited by CMS for possible abuse or neglect. We would not recommend this facility under any circumstance.

We awarded this facility a grade of just D for our long-term care score and that actually turned out to be its second highest category. For prospective patients looking for a permanent residence as opposed to rehabilitation, long-term care is a very important category. Once we looked at the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we next considered the facility's vaccination data. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents against pneumonia, which is higher than the majority of nursing homes. Surprisingly, this place was able to keep its residents out of the hospital. It had just 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days. Unfortunately, a few of its other scores in this category weren't as favorable as these.

As it turns out, this facility only earned a D for its short-term care grade, which is not a score to write home about. With our short-term care grade, we try to forge a fair barometer for rehabilitation. In doing so, we analyze the facility's offerings of highly-skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as respiratory therapy. Not surprisingly, we discovered that this facility offers significantly less registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than a typical nursing home. Lastly, we assessed the percentage of residents that were able to return home from this facility. This nursing home didn't fare well here either. In fact, we found that just 0 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home.

The last area we looked at was nursing. This nursing home was given a very poor grade of F in this area. Our nursing grade looks at the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. We consider both the levels of skill of the nurses and the number of hours 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. In addition to rating below average in nursing hours per resident, this nursing home also had poor scores in the quality-based measures we looked at in calculating our nursing ratings. We looked at the percentage of patients experiencing pressure ulcers and major falls. This nursing home was at about 1.5 times the national average in both of these data points. This is likely a bad sign when you consider that many falls and bed sores are believed to be preventable with better nursing care. These scores pulled down this nursing home's nursing grade quite a bit.