Kern River Transitional Care

While this place's overall grade was not a highlight, it actually received a very good grade in the area of inspections. We awarded it a grade of B for that category, which is one of our better scores. Our inspection grades account for several factors found on a nursing home's inspection reports. One key criteria we rely on is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. You should avoid nursing homes with too many severe deficiencies flagged. While this place had a few minor dings on its government inspection report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones found in categories G, H, I, J, K and L. This tells you that the government inspectors did not deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. A few minor deficiencies aren't the end of the world.

This nursing home's short-term care grade turns out to be one of its respectable grades. The nursing home received a grade of B- in this category. In determining our short-term care scores, we size up a facility's levels of skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists speech therapists and other highly skilled individuals. This category is typically a solid measure of a nursing home's rehabilitation. In this nursing home's case, we were surprised to learn that it actually provides less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per patient than a typical facility. Finally, we looked at the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 5.3 percent of this facility's patients returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their patients are able to return home so this figure is below average.

This nursing home's third most favorable area is long-term care. We gave it a C in this area. This is essentially a slightly below average grade in this area. For long-term care residents, the primary objective is to maintain patients' quality of life and keep them safe. In addition to looking at the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we analyzed the number of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents. This nursing home keeps its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.03 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.

The next area we looked at was nursing, where this facility received a poor grade here also. Unfortunately, we gave it a lowly F for this category, which is definitely a major disappointment. Our nursing score assesses the nursing home's nurse staffing levels. We look at both the levels of skill of the nurses and the number of hours spent with residents. This nursing home averaged a meager 0.4 hours of nursing care per patient on a daily basis. In addition to ranking below average in nursing hours per resident, this nursing home also had poor scores in the quality-based metrics we looked at in calculating our nursing ratings. We looked at the percentage of residents sustaining pressure ulcers and major falls. This place was at approximately 1.5 times the national average in both of these statistics. This is a bad sign when you consider that many falls and bed sores are believed to be preventable with better nursing care. These statistics pulled down this nursing home's nursing grade quite a bit.