Granada Hills Convalescent

In addition to receiving a great overall score, this facility excelled in our inspections category, which is based on its recent inspection reports. In fact, we awarded it an A for this category. Our inspection grades are tied to many items located in the a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Places that score well in this category typically have few deficiencies on their reports. Most importantly, these nursing homes generally do not have any severe deficiencies which are associated with risks to patient safety. While this nursing home had some deficiencies on its government inspection report, none of them were serious based on CMS' scale. Remember that deficiency-free inspection reports are uncommon in this industry.

This nursing home also received a very impressive nursing grade. In fact, this turned out to be its second best category grade. In that area, we awarded this facility a grade of A-. Nursing ratings are largely tied to a facility's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality measures and this nursing home excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any nursing home California in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as by employing a protocol of moving a resident more often.

This facility also was given a top-shelf short-term care grade. In fact, this turned out to be this nursing home's third strongest category grade. In that area, we awarded this facility a score of A-. In our short-term care grade, we attempt to forge a meaningful barometer for rehabilitation services. In this process, we assess a nursing home's offerings of skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as speech therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every nursing home employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, based on the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final item we looked at in this category is the percentage of patients who ultimately were able to return home from the facility. We found that 4.9 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

Switching gears to the last area, this nursing home received a strong long-term care grade. While this isn't as good as many of its other grades, this is still one of our stronger scores a facility can receive. Long-term care scores of this caliber generally require both 24/7 care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine healthcare services. Once we looked at the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination data. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its patients for pneumonia. Vaccines are critical to keeping residents healthy. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. It had only 0.03 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.