Casitas Care Center

While this facility's overall score was not a highlight, it did receive a very good grade in the category of inspections. We awarded it a B for that category, which is one of our better grades. Inspection grades are tied to many datapoints located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Deficiencies are an important thing to look for on these reports. Most importantly, you should avoid facilities that have severe deficiencies linked to endangerment of patients. This place was hit with 7 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be severe deficiencies. This tells you that the inspectors did not deem any of these deficiencies to be an immediate risk to patient safety or health. A couple minor deficiencies are not necessarily the end of the world.

The next best category we gave this nursing home in any category came in the category of short-term care, where we awarded it a grade of B-. With our short-term care rating, we seek to forge a meaningful barometer for rehabilitation services. In this process, we assess the nursing home's scope of skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as speech therapy. In this facility's case, we were surprised to learn that it actually provides less registered nurse and physical therapist hours per patient than the typical facility. The final metric we looked at in this category is the number of residents that were able to return home from the nursing home. We found that just 4.8 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home. Unfortunately, this was below average.

We awarded this facility a respectable grade in the area of nursing as well, with a grade of C. Nursing scores are mostly associated with a nursing home's nurse staffing. This facility provides only 0.4 hours of nursing care per patient per day. This is a somewhat alarming figure which is well below the national average. Lastly, nursing ratings also factor in quality-based measures, such as avoiding major falls. Despite not having the highest total nursing hours per resident, this place performed admirably in the area of preventing major falls. This is typically a reliable 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.

The last area we scored was long-term care, where this facility received a bottom of the barrel score here also. It received an F for this area, which is definitely somewhat alarming. For prospective patients in need of a permanent residence rather than skilled nursing, long-term care is a very important category. In addition to looking at the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is more than most nursing homes. To our surprise, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. With only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this facility had fewer hospitalizations than the average nursing home. Unfortunately, a few of its other scores in this category were not as favorable as these.