Arbor Hills Nursing Center

We also wanted to emphasize the fact that this facility has earned excellent health inspections recently. We awarded them an A in this category. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in calculating these inspection grades. One of those factors is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of these deficiencies is usually more important than the number of deficiencies, as some of these can be relatively minor. Fortunately, although this place had some minor dings on its report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones labeled as categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you CMS didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. The fact that the deficiencies were relatively minor made us feel better about this inspection report.

Contributing to its top-shelf assessment, this nursing home also was awarded a superb short-term care grade, with a score of A-. In the area of short-term care, we endeavor to evaluate measures of a nursing home's rehabilitation. We analyze the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including the ones performed by registered nurses and physical, occupational and other therapists. It doesn't appear that this facility provided data regarding its registered nurse or physical therapy staffing. Finally, we assessed the percentage of residents that eventually returned home from this facility. We found that 6.1 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

This facility also was given an impressive long-term care score. Indeed, we gave it an above average score of B+ in this category. Long-term care ratings in this range generally require both 24/7 care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine healthcare services. In addition to assessing the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients, which is significantly higher than the average nursing home. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

The final area we graded is nursing, where this nursing home was given a grade of B. This actually ended up being this facility's weakest category. A nursing home is doing something right when it's lowest score still is better than most facilities. The nursing score analyzes a handful of factors, but the most important consideration is the quantity of nurse hours spent with patients. This nursing home provides 0.4 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 offering better nursing care, such as by having a policy of turning a resident even once per day.