Avalon Health Care-Madera

On top of being a quality facility overall, this nursing home really performed well in our long-term care category, where it received a grade of A. When facilities receive this kind of score in long-term care it is a good sign for patient care and indicates that the nursing home is well-staffed with nurses and aids. Once we assessed the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we turned to the facility's vaccination records. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is much higher than the majority of nursing homes. Finally, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

In addition, this nursing home also performed well in our inspection category, which is based on its recent government inspections. We gave it an A for that category, which is one of our top grades. Inspection grades account for several factors found on a nursing home's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we consider is the number and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better grades in this area tend to have few severe deficiencies. Fortunately, although this facility 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 CMS 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 received a very good nursing grade this year as well. It received one of our better scores in that category with a grade of B. In calculating our nursing grades, we look at both nursing hours and the training levels of the nurses. This facility provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures and this place excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any facility 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 protocol of turning residents more often.

The last area we assessed is short-term care. We gave this nursing home a D for the area of short-term care, leaving this as its least impressive area. Our short-term care grades are arguably more meaningful for folks in need of a nursing home for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally requires higher levels of skilled nursing. Skilled nursing means not only nursing, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other types of therapy. Unfortunately, we discovered that this place provided less registered nurse and physical therapist hours per patient than most other facilities. Finally, we considered the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. This wasn't a strength for this nursing home. We found that just 4.9 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home. At most facilities, about half of their residents are able to return home so this is well below average.