Alpine Meadow Rehabilitation and Nursing

The primary reason this nursing home received a decent overall grade is its excellent health inspections in recent years. We gave it one of our higher scores in that category, with an A+. This is a notably better score than the facility's overall grade, which was decent but certainly not elite. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in determining these inspection grades. One key factor is health deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of these deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the number of deficiencies, as some are quite minor. Fortunately, although this facility had a few minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones labeled as categories G through L. This tells you that the inspectors didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Remember that deficiency-free inspections are rare in the industry.

This nursing home's long-term care score turns out to be one of its higher features. The nursing home was given a grade of B- in this area. In calculating our long-term care grades, we analyze the facility's ability to maintain its permanent residents' health and quality of life. On top of considering the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. Thankfully, this facility administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is a very solid statistic. Finally, this place was also able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

The next highest grade we gave this nursing home in any area came in the category of nursing, where we gave it a grade of C. Our nursing rating is based on several factors. The most important factor is the number of hours nurses spend with residents. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a relatively low total compared to most other facilities. Lastly, we also assessed several nursing quality measures. While this nursing home got docked a bit for nursing hours per resident, it actually excelled in some of these quality metrics. With less than five percent of its patients sustaining pressure ulcers, it did well in this statistic. This is typically a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as employing a policy of turning a resident at least once a day.

The next category we assessed was short-term care. We gave it a grade of C in this category. This is a perfectly acceptable grade in this area. In computing our short-term care ratings, we assess the facility's levels of highly skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists respiratory therapists and other licensed professionals. This grade is typically a useful assessment of a facility's rehabilitation services. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the information this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final datapoint we considered in this area is the number of residents that eventually returned home from the nursing home. We found that just 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home.