Zion of Alamo Heights

Although this nursing home's overall grade was not a highlight, it actually received a very good grade in the category of inspections. In fact, we awarded it a grade of B+ for that area, which is one of our better scores. Our inspection grades weigh several factors included in a nursing home's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we weigh heavily is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. You generally want to avoid places with a bunch of deficiencies flagged. Fortunately, although this nursing home had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you that the inspectors didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. A few minor deficiencies are not the end of the world.

This nursing home's second most favorable category was short-term care. We awarded it a C in this area. This is essentially a middle of the road score in this area. In the category of short-term care, we seek to qualify measures of a nursing home's rehabilitation services. We analyze the nursing home's skilled nursing services, including the ones performed by registered nurses and physical and occupational therapists. Unfortunately, we found that this place provided fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other nursing homes. The key is determining what effect this had on the quality of care. Finally, we assessed the number of patients who returned home from this facility. We found that 0 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home. This figure was quite a bit below average.

Unfortunately, this facility only received a grade of D for its nursing grade, which was actually one of its better category grades. Our nursing category weighs quite a few factors, most of which are based on quantities of nurse staffing. This place offered just 0.4 hours of nursing care per patient on a daily basis. Lastly, we also assessed some nursing quality measures in calculating our nursing grades. This place fared well in terms of minimizing its residents' major falls and pressure ulcers.

Moving on to our next category, this nursing home didn't perform well in this area either. With a rock bottom grade of F in long-term care, this is just about as as uninspiring as it gets. In a long-term care environment, the nursing home's primary objective is to maintain patients' quality of life and keep them safe. In addition to looking at the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. Thankfully, this nursing home administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients, which is a very respectable figure. To our surprise, this nursing home also fared well at keeping its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days. Sadly, some of its other scores in the category were not as favorable as these.