Buena Vista Care Center

In addition to earning a strong overall score, this facility performed well in short-term care. In fact, we awarded it a grade of A- for that category, which is one of our highest scores. In calculating our short-term care ratings, we scrutinize a facility's levels of skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists occupational therapists and other highly skilled individuals. This score is frequently a solid measure of the facility's rehabilitation services. This nursing home employs both physical therapists and registered nurses. Not all facilities employ these skilled professionals. The final item we assessed in this category is the number of residents that eventually returned home from the facility. This turned out to be more of a strength for this nursing home. It fared as well as just about any facility in California with 62.7 percent of its residents returning home. For most nursing homes, fewer than half of their short-stay residents ever return home.

This facility received high grades in the area of nursing as well. In fact, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A-. Our nursing score assesses the facility's level of nurse staffing. We consider both the levels of skill of the nurses as well as the quantity of hours spent with patients. This facility provided 3.8 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also looked at some nursing quality measures in determining our nursing grades. This nursing home performed very well in terms of minimizing its residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

This facility is also strong in the area of long-term care, where it was awarded a score of B. It outperformed most facilities in this area. Nursing homes that receive this kind of score in long-term care tend to provide consistent 24/7 care to ensure residents are well cared for. After looking at the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we turned to the facility's vaccination statistics. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients against pneumonia. Vaccines are critical to keeping residents out of the hospital. Lastly, this nursing home was able to limit hospitalizations. With just 1.51 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this nursing home had fewer hospitalizations than most nursing homes.

In the final category we looked at, we found that this nursing home earned a solid government inspection report this year as well, with few major dings from government inspectors. It received a decent grade in inspections with a grade of B-. This facility really didn't have any major weak links. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in determining our inspection ratings. One critical factor is health deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of the deficiencies is arguably more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some deficiencies can be quite insignificant. This facility received 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but fortunately none were considered to be severe. This indicates that the government inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies to pose an imminent threat to resident safety or health. A few minor dings aren't necessarily something to panic about.