Alta Vista Rehabilitation and Healthcare

This facility earned a strong overall grade as described above, but we wanted to point out its excellent long-term care rating. We gave them an A in this category. Long-term care grades of this caliber generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine medical care. One of the statistics we considered in addition to nursing hours was vaccinations. This nursing home administered the pneumonia vaccination to 100 percent of its residents. Vaccination is a great way to avoid unnecessary hospitalizations for the senior population. Finally, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. It had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

In addition, this nursing home also received top notch government inspections in recent years. We gave them one of our better scores in that area, with a grade of A-. Inspection scores weigh a host of factors included in a nursing home's inspection reports. One key criteria we consider is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Places with better scores in this area typically have very few of these severe deficiencies. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

The third area we assessed is short-term care. In that category, we gave this nursing home a B-. Short-term care ratings are important for patients in need of rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually utilizes more highly-skilled nursing. This means a broad scope of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, as well as other types of therapy. We weren't able to track down information on registered nurse or physical therapy staffing for this nursing home. Lastly, we looked at the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 5.3 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most nursing homes, closer to half of their residents are able to return home so this figure is below average.

The last area we analyzed is nursing, ended up being this facility's least impressive category. We gave this facility a D in this category. This was one of just a few dings in a very solid profile. Our nursing grade analyzes the facility's nurse staffing levels. We weigh both the levels of licensure of those nurses and the number of hours spent with patients. This place averaged only 0.3 hours of nursing care per patient each day. This is a very low total compared to most nursing homes. While this nursing home's nursing hours were below average, it surprised us in a few of the qualitative metrics in this category. In particular, we were pleased to see that its residents appear to be sustaining fewer pressure ulcers than most nursing homes.