San Joaquin Nursing and Rehabilitation

While this facility's overall score was terrible, it actually didn't perform as badly in nursing. We awarded it a C for that area. When computing a nursing home's nursing rating, we weigh the amount of time nurses are caring for residents and the level of licensure of the nurses. This facility provided just 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a relatively low total compared to most other facilities. Lastly, our nursing scores also consider quality-based metrics, such as avoiding major falls. Despite not having the highest total nursing hours per resident, this facility actually performed admirably in the metric of preventing major falls. This is generally a good indicator that a nursing home has sufficient quality controls in place. Many falls can be avoided if a nursing home provides enough nurses to assist its residents.

Interestingly, this facility's abysmal overall score can't really be attributed to its government inspection reports. We gave it a C for our inspections rating. Inspection ratings weigh a host of factors found on a facility's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we look at is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. This facility was hit with 6 deficiencies on its government inspection report, but none were in categories G through L. This means it dodged the more ominous classes of deficiencies. Unfortunately, we also need to draw your attention to the fact that this facility received some government fines in recent years.

This facility also didn't perform poorly in the category of short-term care. Indeed, we gave it a C for that category, which happens to be another one of its better scores. Our short-term care grades are based in part on a nursing home's quantity of skilled skilled healthcare professionals. This means a wide scope of services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, not to mention other types of therapy. In this place's case, we were surprised to learn that it actually provides less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than the typical facility. The last metric we looked at in this area is the percentage of patients that ultimately returned home from the facility. We found that just 5 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home. Unfortunately, this was below the national average.

The next category we graded was long-term care, which is a weak link for this nursing home. We gave this facility a grade of D in long-term care. In a long-term care setting, the facility's primary objective is to keep patients as healthy and safe as possible. This is different than skilled nursing or short-term care where the goal is to rehabilitate patients. Once we looked at the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we then analyzed the nursing home's vaccination record. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents against pneumonia, which is higher than most nursing homes. To our surprise, this place also keeps its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.03 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days. Unfortunately, some of its other scores in this category were not as favorable as these.