Heritage Oaks

On top of performing well in its overall grade, this facility performed at an even higher level in the area of inspections. In fact, it received a nearly flawless inspection report this year. As a result, it received one of our highest grades in that category with a score of A. These inspection ratings weigh several factors, including deficiencies and federal fines. You can find more information about each of these issues by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. While this nursing home had a few deficiencies on its government inspection report, none were major deficiencies based on CMS' deficiency scale. The fact that the deficiencies were relatively minor leaves us less concerned with this inspection report.

To complement its strong performance in other categories, we gave this facility an B for nursing. Our nursing score assesses the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. We factor in both the levels of skill of the nurses as well as the number of hours spent with residents. This particular nursing home provided 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality-based metrics and this facility excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any place the country in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can many times be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as by having a system of moving a resident more often.

This facility was awarded its next most favorable category score in the category of short-term care. We gave this nursing home a B- in this category, which is a decent score. Short-term care scores are vital for patients looking for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally utilizes higher levels of skilled nursing services. Skilled nursing includes a vast range of nursing services, spanning from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other types of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, based on the data they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last metric we looked at in this category is the number of patients who were able to leave the facility and return home. We discovered that just 0 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home, which is below average.

Moving on to our final area, this nursing home received a decent long-term care score of C. In a long-term care environment, the nursing home's primary goal is to maintain residents' quality of life and keep them safe. On top of considering the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home gave the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents. This place keeps its residents out of the hospital. Indeed, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.