Torrance Care Center West

We want to note that this place received a much better grade for long-term care than it did overall. In fact, we gave it one of our highest scores in that category with an A-. When facilities receive a score in this range in this category it typically means it has plenty of staff and is an overall good place to live on a permanent basis. One of the statistics we considered on top of nursing hours is vaccinations. This nursing home administered the pneumonia vaccination to 100 percent of its residents. This is a great way to minimize negative health outcomes for the nursing home population. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

This facility also earned a very favorable inspection rating. In fact, its inspection grade proved to be its second best category. In that category, we gave this facility a B. Inspection ratings are based on several items found on the a nursing home's recent inspections. Facilities that excel in this area typically have very few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these facilities generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with endangerment of patients. Fortunately, although this nursing home had a few minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are labeled as categories G through L. This means that the government inspectors didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. A couple minor deficiencies should not lead you to cross a nursing home off your list.

This facility's next best category grade came in the area of nursing. In that category, we gave this nursing home a grade of B-. Our nursing score is based on several components, most of which are based on quantities of nurse staffing. This nursing home averages just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a very low figure. Lastly, despite not having the most impressive total nursing hours per resident, this place performed admirably in the metric of preventing major falls. This is often a good indicator that a facility has quality controls in place.

This facility's least impressive area was short-term care, which is the last area we analyzed. Sadly, it received a lowly F for this category. Even with multiple decent scores in other areas, this score is nevertheless concerning so we would like to to draw your attention to it. Short-term care ratings are critical for residents seeking rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally utilizes more skilled nursing. Skilled nursing means a broad spectrum of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other types of therapy. Based on its grade in this category, we were not stunned to discover that this facility was well below average in terms of its number of physical therapy and registered nurse hours offered to its patients based on the data we looked at. Frankly, this was about what we expected to find. Lastly, we assessed the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. This wasn't a strength for this facility. We found that just 3.2 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home. At most facilities, about half of their residents are able to return home so this is well below average.