Brookdale Westlake Hills

In addition to performing well overall, this nursing home also earned nearly flawless government inspections. Consequently, it received one of our best scores in that area with an A+. Inspection ratings weigh several factors included in a nursing home's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we rely on is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Nursing homes with better grades in this area usually have very few severe deficiencies. Amazingly, this was one of the few nursing homes in the country that had no deficiencies whatsoever on its inspection report. This is very impressive. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

Contributing to its superb profile, this nursing home also performed well in our short-term care area. In fact, it received a score of A for the area. Our short-term care grades are presumably most meaningful for people in need of rehabilitation from their nursing home. Rehabilitation usually utilizes higher levels of highly-skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing means not just nursing services, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other variations of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home employs these skilled professionals. However, based on the information they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we looked at the number of patients who ultimately returned home from this facility. We found that 7.2 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home.

This nursing home received an impressive long-term care grade as well. We gave it one of our better grades in that area with a grade of B+. Long-term care ratings in this range generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine medical care. In addition to considering the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 74.242424 percent of its patients. This is a few points below what we were hoping for. While its vaccination rate was a bit lower than we hoped for, we were pleased to find nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. It had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Switching gears to our next area, this facility was awarded a decent nursing score. While this wasn't quite as elite as a few of its other grades, this is still not a major area of concern. In determining a facility's nursing score, we weigh the quantity of hours nurses are seeing patients as well as the level of licensure of those nurses. This facility provided just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident each day. This is a low total compared with most nursing homes. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics. Although this place got docked a bit for its nursing hours per resident, it excelled in a few of these quality measures. With fewer than five percent of its residents suffering from pressure ulcers, it fared well in this metric. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can typically be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by having a system of turning patients more frequently.