Golden Living Center - Galt

It should be noted that this nursing home's inspection rating outpaced its overall score. We awarded it a grade of B for its inspections grade, which is one of our better scores. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in calculating our inspection scores. One critical factor is deficiencies. You should keep in mind that the severity of deficiencies is arguably more important than the number of deficiencies, as some can be quite minor. This nursing home was hit with 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but fortunately none of the deficiencies were considered severe. This indicates that the inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies to be an imminent threat to patient safety or health. A few minor deficiencies should not lead you to cross a nursing home off your list.

Another one of this facility's higher category grades came in the category of short-term care. In that area, we awarded this nursing home a grade of B. It actually outpaced most nursing homes in this category. Short-term care grades are based in part on the facility's quantity of highly-skilled highly skilled professionals. This includes a wide range of services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, in addition to other types of therapy. It doesn't look like this facility submitted information on registered nurse or physical therapist staffing. The last datapoint we assessed in this area is the number of patients that returned home from the nursing home. We found that 6.1 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the facility on a permanent basis.

This nursing home also received a strong nursing grade. In fact, we awarded it a grade of B in that category, which is one of our better scores. Our nursing rating weighs a handful of subcategories, many of which are based on nursing hours. This nursing home provides 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This nursing home performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a place has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can generally be avoided if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

The last area we scored is long-term care. We awarded it a grade of C in this category. This is basically a middle of the road grade in this area. In the category of long-term care, we weigh the amount of services provided by a nursing home, rather than more sophisticated services. On top of assessing the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents, which is better than the vast majority of nursing homes. Lastly, this place was also able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.