Golden Living Center-Sanger

This nursing home's overall grade was propped up by a strong long-term care rating. We gave them one of our higher grades in that category, with a B. This is a notably better grade than its overall score. Facilities that do well in this category tend to provide patients with more supervision and stay on top of routine healthcare services. In addition to looking at the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we analyzed the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 98.376625 percent of its patients, which is what we like to see. Pneumonia tragically can be a life or death ailment for nursing home residents so we like it when a facility does not leave its residents vulnerable. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

This nursing home's inspection grade also was better than its overall grade. Due to a quality inspection report this year, it earned one of our better scores in that area with a grade of B. Inspection scores take several factors into consideration, including deficiencies and substantiated complaints. You can find more information about each of these items by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. Fortunately, although this facility had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are those found in categories G through L. This tells you that the inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. A couple of minor deficiencies shouldn't lead you to cross a nursing home off your list.

Next, we looked at the nursing category where we awarded this nursing home a grade of B-, which is a decent grade. When determining our nursing scores, we weigh both staffing levels and the levels of licensure of those nurses. This facility provided just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident each day. This is a low total compared to most nursing homes. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality-based metrics. While this place got dinged a bit for its nursing hours per resident, it excelled in a few of these quality-based metrics. With fewer than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it fared well in this area. This is typically an indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can generally be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as employing a policy of moving a resident more frequently.

Switching gears to our final area, this nursing home was given a grade of B- for short-term care, which is a respectable grade. In crafting our short-term care scores, we assess the facility's skilled nursing services, including those performed by registered nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. The goal is to create a tool for sizing up the rehabilitation services of different facilities. Unfortunately, we found that this nursing home provided fewer registered nurse and physical therapist hours per resident than most other facilities. Finally, we assessed the number of residents that were able to return home from this facility. We found that 5.5 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home. This figure was well below the national average.