Aperion Care Burbank

The main reason this facility received a decent overall score is its excellent health inspections in recent years. We awarded them one of our higher scores in that area, with an A. This is a much better score than the place's overall grade, which was decent but certainly not elite. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in computing these inspection scores. One key factor is deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some are relatively minor. This place was assessed 7 deficiencies on its inspection report, but none were considered to be severe. This indicates that the inspectors didn't deem any of the deficiencies to cause an imminent risk to resident safety or health. A couple of minor deficiencies shouldn't lead you to cross a nursing home off your list.

We also gave this nursing home a decent score in the category of nursing care, with a grade of B-. We assessed the licensure of nurses employed by the nursing home, in addition to the quantity of time the nurses worked with residents, in determining our score in this category. This nursing home provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per patient on a daily basis. This is a relatively low total compared with most facilities. Lastly, while this facility got dinged a bit for its nursing hours, it actually excelled in a few of our quality-based measures. With less than five percent of its patients sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed remarkably well in this area.

We gave this facility just a D for our short-term care rating. This is not a very good score. In determining our short-term care grades, we analyze the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of therapists. Our goal is to devise a measure for sizing up the rehabilitation services of various nursing homes. Considering its score in this area, we weren't stunned to find that this facility is well below average in terms of its number of registered nurse and physical therapy hours provided to its patients based on the data we looked at. The last measure we assessed in this category is the number of patients who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We discovered that just 3.7 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home, which is well below average. The combination of these subpar statistics was damning for this nursing home's short-term care score.

The next area we assessed is long-term care, which was a low point for this facility. We gave this nursing home a D in long-term care. In a long-term care environment, the primary objective is to maintain patients' quality of life and keep them safe. After looking at the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination statistics. We were pleased to find that this nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients for pneumonia. To our surprise, this place also fared well at keeping its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0.03 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days. Unfortunately, a few of its other scores in the category were not as favorable as these.