Alpine Village Retirement Center

On top of being a first rate nursing home overall, this nursing home excelled in the area of inspections, where it earned an A+. Few nursing homes performed as well in this area. Our inspection ratings are based on many items found on the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes that score well in this category have very few deficiencies on those reports. Most importantly, these facilities generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. While this place had a few minor dings on its report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those labeled as categories G through L. This tells you that the government inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This facility also excelled in the area of nursing, where it received a grade of A. Few nursing homes performed better in this area. Our nursing score is mostly associated with a facility's level of nurse staffing. This particular nursing home 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 facility performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a place has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can frequently be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

The third area we looked at is short-term care. Adding to its dominant profile, this facility also performed well in that area. In fact, we gave it a grade of of A- for that area. In forming these short-term care grades, we analyze the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. The purpose is to create a tool for sizing up the rehabilitation services of various nursing homes. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the information they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last statistic we assessed in this area is the number of residents that ultimately returned home from the nursing home. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

Switching gears to the final area, this facility also performed well in our long-term care category. We awarded it a grade of B+ in that area. This completed a very strong report card. Facilities that do well in long-term care tend to provide patients with closer supervision and stay on top of routine healthcare services. After considering the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we next considered the facility's vaccination record. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its residents against pneumonia, which is far higher than the average nursing home. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.