Carson Nursing and Rehabilitation Center

It should be noted that this nursing home's inspection rating outpaced its overall grade. We awarded it a B for its inspections grade, which is one of our better scores. Our inspection grades account for a host of factors included in a facility's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we consider is the number and severity of deficiencies. Places with better grades in this area usually have few of these severe deficiencies. This facility received 6 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be major deficiencies. This tells you that the government inspectors did not consider any of these deficiencies to be an immediate risk to resident safety or health. A few minor deficiencies shouldn't stop you from considering a nursing home.

This facility's second best category grade came in the area of nursing. In that category, we gave this nursing home a grade of B-. Nursing grades are primarily tied to a facility's nurse staffing. This nursing home provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident each day. This is a relatively low total compared with most nursing homes. Lastly, our nursing ratings also consider quality-based metrics, such as preventing major falls. Despite not having the highest total nursing hours, this place actually performed admirably in the metric of preventing major falls. This is generally an indicator that a facility has sufficient quality controls in place. Many falls can be avoided if a facility supplies enough nurses aids to assist its patients.

This nursing home was awarded its next most favorable category score in the area of short-term care. We awarded this facility a C in this area, which is a reasonably acceptable grade. In forming our short-term care grades, we look at the facility's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. Our objective is to create a tool for sizing up the rehabilitation services of different nursing homes. We found that this nursing home was below average in the two key staffing areas we assessed. The facility supplied fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than most other nursing homes. Finally, we considered the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 5 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their patients are able to return home so this figure is below average.

The next category we rated is long-term care, which proved to be a weak spot for this facility. We gave this nursing home a grade of D for our long-term care category. When facilities receive a grade in this range in long-term care it typically means the facility did not perform well in our measures relating to patient care. Once we looked at the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we next considered the facility's vaccination record. This facility vaccinated 92.64706 percent of its residents for pneumonia, which is slightly below what we expected but still a reasonably acceptable figure. To our surprise, this place was actually decent at keeping its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had just 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days. This is its best score in this category.