Carson Tahoe Transitional Rehabilitation Center

We also found that this facility excelled in our short-term care rating. We gave them an elite grade of A+ in this category. In forming our short-term care scores, we quantify the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. Our purpose is to create a scale for sizing up the rehabilitation services of various nursing homes. Fortunately, it appear that this facility employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the data this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last measure we considered in this category is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We discovered that 7 percent of this nursing home's patients were able to return home.

Turning to our inspection category, this nursing home excelled in that area, which is based on the nursing home's inspection reports. We awarded it an A for that category. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in computing these inspection scores. One of those factors is health deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of the deficiencies is arguably more meaningful than the number of deficiencies, as some deficiencies can be relatively insignificant. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

We also wanted to emphasize the fact that this facility was awarded a superb score of A in our long-term care category. For residents looking for a permanent place to live as opposed to rehabilitation, long-term care grades are a key measure. After considering the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we then looked at the facility's vaccination record. We weren't able to track down this place's vaccination data. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

In the final category, this facility also received a first-rate nursing score, with an A. This topped off an elite report card. Our nursing rating weighs many subcategories, however, the most important consideration is the quantity of nurse hours per patient per week. This nursing home averages 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at certain nursing quality-based metrics in computing our nursing grades. These include minimizing residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. We view these metrics as predictive measures of the quality of nursing care being provided, since better care tends to reduce these problems.