Delano Postacute Care

While this facility's overall score was not a highlight, it actually received a very good score in the area of inspections. In fact, we awarded it a B+ for that area, which is one of our better grades. Our inspection ratings account for several factors found on a facility's inspection report. One of the most important criteria we rely on is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. You generally want to avoid places with a list of severe deficiencies flagged. This nursing home was assessed 6 deficiencies on its inspection report, but fortunately none were considered to be major deficiencies. This means that the government inspectors didn't deem any of these deficiencies to cause an immediate threat to patient safety or health. A couple minor deficiencies are not the end of the world.

We also gave this facility a strong grade in the area of nursing, where it received a grade of B. This is better than most nursing homes in this category. Nursing ratings are largely associated with the nursing home's nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures and this place excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any facility California in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as by having a policy of moving a resident more often.

Unfortunately, this facility's third highest category is long-term care. As it turns out, with a D in this category, it still performed relatively poorly. If you are seeking anything other than short-term rehabilitation, you should take a close look at each nursing home's long-term care grades. 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 facility administered the vaccine to 95.652176 percent of its patients, which is higher than most nursing homes. Surprisingly, this facility also keeps its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had just 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days. Sadly, a few of its other scores in the category were not as favorable as these.

Turning to our final area, this nursing home really did not perform well in this category either. With a bottom of the barrel grade of F in short-term care, this is really as bad as it gets. Short-term care scores are crucial for individuals seeking rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically utilizes more skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes a broad scope of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other variations of therapy. With a grade this poor in this area, we weren't shocked to learn that this nursing home was below average in multiple staffing figures we looked at. The nursing home offered significantly fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per patient than most other nursing homes. The last metric we assessed in this category is the number of residents who were able to leave the facility and return to the community. We discovered that just 4.8 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home, which is well below average. The combination of these subpar statistics doomed this nursing home's short-term care score.