Amberwood Gardens

We want to draw your attention to the fact that this nursing home received a much better grade for nursing than it received overall. In fact, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A-. Our nursing grade considers a number of factors. The most important variable is the quantity of hours nurses spent with residents. This nursing home provides 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality measures and this facility excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any nursing home California in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as employing a policy of turning a patient at least once a day.

This nursing home's inspection rating exceeded its overall score as well. We awarded them one of our better grades in that category, with a B. This is a notably better score than the facility's overall grade. These inspection ratings weigh several factors, including deficiencies and federal fines. You can learn more about each of these items by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. While this place had some minor dings on its government inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those found in categories G through L. This tells you the government inspectors did not consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. A couple relatively minor dings are not the end of the world.

The next area we analyzed is long-term care. In that category, we awarded this facility a decent grade of B-. In computing our long-term care ratings, we scrutinize the personal care offered to a nursing home's patients. After we finished looking at the volume of nursing care, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination records. We were optimistic to find that this nursing home vaccinates 100 percent of its residents against pneumonia. This nursing home keeps its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

The last area we rated was short-term care. This nursing home was given a B- in this area. In the area of short-term care, we attempt to qualify measures of a facility's rehabilitation services. We look at the facility's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses and physical and occupational therapists. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last measure we assessed in this category is the percentage of residents who ultimately returned home from the nursing home. We found that just 3.7 percent of this facility's residents returned home. Unfortunately, this was below average.