Baldomero Lopez Memorial Veterans Nursing Home

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a quality nursing home is that it received an A+ inspection grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this critical category. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in calculating these inspection scores. One key factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of deficiencies is usually more important than the number of deficiencies, as some deficiencies end up being quite insignificant. 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.

One of the other reasons we graded this facility so highly is that it received a very impressive nursing rating. In that category, we gave this facility a grade of A+. Our nursing rating is primarily based on the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home averages 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics and this nursing home 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 the nation in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by employing a system of moving patients more frequently.

The third area we assessed is long-term care. Adding to its first-rate resume, this nursing home also excelled in that area. In fact, it received a of A for that category. Nursing homes that do well in long-term care tend to be well-staffed and provide extensive hands on care to patients. On top of considering the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 99.70326 percent of its residents, which is much higher than the vast majority of nursing homes. Lastly, this nursing home 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 the final category we assessed, this facility received a very favorable grade of A in our short-term care category. With this score, the nursing home completed a straight A report card. Our short-term care scores are presumably more meaningful for residents requiring rehabilitation services. Rehabilitation typically requires more skilled nursing. This means not merely nursing, but also physical and occupational therapy, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. However, based on the information they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final measure we looked at in this category is the number of residents that returned home from the facility. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.