Carson Nursing and Rehabilitation Center

This facility really excelled in the category of short-term care. We awarded it an A- for that category, which is one of our highest grades. This really salvaged its overall profile. Our short-term care grades are critical for people looking for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally requires more skilled nursing. This includes a vast spectrum of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. However, according to the information they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. Lastly, we looked at the number of residents who were able to return home from this nursing home. We found that 5.9 percent of this nursing home's residents were able to return home.

One of the other reasons we rated this facility so highly is that it received a very impressive nursing grade. This turned out to be its second best category grade. In that category, we gave this nursing home a grade of B. In calculating a facility's nursing grade, we consider the number of hours nurses spend with patients and the skill levels of those nurses. This nursing home averages 0.2 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This facility performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a facility has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can typically be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

Turning to our inspection category, it appears this nursing home has received respectable inspections in recent years as well. We gave it a grade of B- in this category. We would argue that one of the most important factors in evaluating an inspection report is deficiencies. We especially focus on the severity of the deficiencies. While this place had some minor dings on its report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are labeled as categories G through L. This means that CMS didn't consider any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. A few minor dings aren't necessarily the end of the world.

Turning to our fourth category, we gave this facility a D for the area of long-term care. This is the facility's least impressive category score. Naturally, this category pulled down the nursing home's overall grade a bit. When facilities receive a grade in this range in this category it generally means the facility did not perform well in our quality measures relating to patient care. One of the statistics we considered in addition to nurse's aid hours is vaccinations. Frankly, we were a bit bothered by the fact that this nursing home administered the pneumonia vaccination to a relatively low 88.03419 percent of its residents. To our surprise, this place was actually able to limit hospitalizations. With only 0.03 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, this facility has less hospitalizations than most nursing homes. This is its best feature in this category.