Alpine Terrace

In addition to receiving a great overall rating, this nursing home fared even better in the area of inspections which is associated with the facility's recent government inspection reports. In fact, we gave it an A for that category, which is one of our highest scores. Perhaps the most significant factor we look at in determining our inspection scores is deficiencies. These deficiencies are found on a nursing home's inspection reports. Nursing homes with better scores in this category typically avoided the most severe deficiencies involving health risks or even death. This nursing home was assessed 2 deficiencies on its inspection report, but fortunately none were considered to be severe. This tells you that the government inspectors didn't consider any of these deficiencies to create an imminent risk to patient health or safety. We should note that deficiency-free inspection reports are rare in the industry.

Among its many impressive scores, this facility received an excellent nursing score. We gave it a grade of B+ in that area. Our nursing rating is primarily based on the nursing home's nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality measures and this place excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place the state in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as by employing a system of moving patients even once per day.

This facility was given an impressive long-term care score as well. We awarded it one of our higher grades in that area with a score of B. When nursing homes receive a grade in this range in long-term care it typically means it has plenty of staff and is an overall good place to reside on a permanent basis. Once we concluded our assessment of the volume of nursing care, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination record. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents against pneumonia, which is very impressive. Pneumonia sadly can be a life threatening illness for nursing home residents so we prefer when a nursing home does not leave its residents vulnerable. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

Turning to our fourth category, this facility received a decent short-term care grade of B-. In the category of short-term care, we seek to qualify indicators of a nursing home's rehabilitation. We look at a nursing home's skilled nursing services, including the ones performed by registered nurses and physical and occupational therapists. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. However, according to the information this nursing home provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final item we assessed in this area is the number of residents that ultimately returned home from the facility. We found that just 4.4 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.