La Vida Llena

One of the many reasons this turned out to be a great nursing home is that it received an A+ long-term care grade. This is simply as good as it gets in this category. Nursing homes that receive this kind of grade in this category typically provide consistent 24/7 care to ensure patients are kept in good health. In addition to considering the volume of care provided by nurses and other staff, we looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This nursing home provided the vaccine to 98.27586 percent of its patients. Vaccines are critical to keeping residents out of the hospital. Clearly, this place is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. It had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

This first-rate facility also excelled in the area of nursing, where it received a grade of A+. Few nursing homes performed better in this area. Nursing ratings are largely tied to the facility's level of nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also looked at some nursing quality measures in determining our nursing grades. This nursing home performed very well in the area of avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be good indicators of the quality of nursing care.

We also wanted to alert you to the fact that this facility was awarded a strong grade of A in our short-term care area. In the category of short-term care, we endeavor to qualify indicators of a nursing home's rehabilitation services. We look at the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as the ones performed by registered nurses and physical and occupational therapists. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. On the other hand, according to the data they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The last datapoint we considered in this area is the number of residents who returned home from the facility. We found that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients returned home as opposed to remaining at the nursing home on a permanent basis.

Completing its excellent profile, this facility also performed well in our inspection category, which is based on the nursing home's recent inspections. We awarded it an impressive grade of B+ for that category, which is one of our better grades. Inspection grades weigh several factors, including deficiencies, substantiated complaints and federal fines. You can learn more about each of these factors by reviewing copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. While this nursing home had a few deficiencies on its report, none were severe based on CMS' deficiency scale. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.