Barton Hospital D/P Snf

With an address in South Lake Tahoe, California, Barton Hospital D/P Snf is the only facility we identified there. It looks like this nursing home is among the most elite facilities we assessed. Receiving an A+ in our grading system requires top-notch performance across the board. In addition, this is a hospital-based nursing home, which is a positive for prospective residents with significant health conditions. Headlining this place's stellar report card is its short-term care score, which is addressed in the next paragraph.

To pair with its strong overall grade, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A+ for its nursing grade. Short-term care ratings are based on the facility's quantity of skilled skilled healthcare professionals. This includes a wide spectrum of services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, not to mention other forms of therapy. When we assessed this facility's nursing hours, we found it offered substantially more care from registered nurses than most nursing homes. The final datapoint we looked at in this category is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We found that it fared as well as just about any facility in California in this area with 68.6 percent of its patients returning home. Unfortunately, at most nursing homes, fewer than half of their short-stay residents are able to return home.

Turning to our inspection category, this facility also excelled in this area, where it received a grade of A+. Few nursing homes performed as well in this category. Inspection ratings account for several factors included in a facility's inspection report. One key criteria we rely on is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Nursing homes with higher scores in this area typically have few severe deficiencies. Fortunately, although this nursing home had some minor dings on its report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those found in categories G through L. This means that CMS did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This nursing home also received a very impressive nursing grade. In that area, we awarded this facility a grade of A. The nursing grade assesses a handful of subcategories, but the main consideration is the number of nurse hours spent with patients. This facility provided 4.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day, which is among the highest totals in the country. A significant percentage of those hours were provided by registered nurses, which are one of the most skilled levels of nurses. We were really impressed by both of these figures. On top of providing high levels of care, this facility also performed well in several of the quality measures we assessed. By way of illustration, in terms of the percentage of its residents suffering falls leading to major injury, this facility performed as well as any facility in the country. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a nursing home has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can often be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

In our last category, this nursing home also was awarded an impressive long-term care score, with an A. This wrapped up a first-rate profile. When facilities receive a score in this range in this category it generally means it has plenty of staff and is a quality place to live on a permanent basis. One of the statistics we considered on top of this facility's quality nursing hours was vaccinations. This nursing home administered the pneumonia vaccination to 100 percent of its residents. Vaccines are a great way to avoid unnecessary deaths for seniors. Lastly, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. With just 1.04 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this facility has less hospitalizations than many nursing homes.