Alamo Nursing Home

In addition to performing well in its overall score, this facility received even higher grades in the area of nursing. In fact, we gave it one of our best scores in that category with an A. There are a number of datapoints within this area. Most of these criteria are tied to levels of nurse staffing. This facility provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This place performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a nursing home has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can typically be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

Adding to this facility's list of strengths, it also received a very favorable short-term care score. We gave them an impressive strong of A- in this area. Our short-term care grades are arguably more important for residents requiring a nursing home for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically utilizes higher levels of highly-skilled nursing. Skilled nursing means not merely nursing, but also physical and respiratory therapy, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we looked at the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 5.5 percent of this facility's residents returned home.

The third category we looked at is long-term care, where this facility was awarded a grade of B- in this category. If you are seeking services other than short-term rehabilitation, you should take a close look at long-term care ratings. After assessing the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we next considered the facility's vaccination data. We were pleased to find that this nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients for pneumonia. Lastly, this nursing home was also able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

Turning our last category, inspections proved to be this facility's worst grade. It earned a score of C in this category. Inspection scores relate to a nursing home's government inspections. Inspection grades take several factors into consideration, including deficiencies and federal fines. You can learn more about each of these items by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. This facility was assessed 5 deficiencies on its government inspection report, but none were category G through L deficiencies. This indicates that inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies to pose an imminent threat to resident health or safety. Unfortunately, we also need to draw your attention to the fact that this facility received significant government fines in recent years.