Lake Balboa Care Center

On top of performing well in its overall score, this facility received a strong nursing rating. In fact, we awarded it a grade of A in that category. We analyzed the skill-level of nurses at the nursing home, as well as the number of hours those nurses spent with residents, in computing our rating in this category. This nursing home provides 0.6 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed 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 frequently be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as by employing a system of turning patients even once per day.

We also would like to note the fact that this facility was awarded a first-rate score of A in our short-term care area. With our short-term care assessment, we strive to forge a fair measure for rehabilitation. In doing so, we analyze the facility's offerings of skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as speech therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these types of nurses. However, based on the information they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The final measure we looked at in this area is the number of patients who were able to leave the facility and return home. We found that 5.7 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home.

Racking up another strong category grade, this nursing home also excelled in inspections, where it earned an A. Few nursing homes performed better in this area. Perhaps the most significant factor we consider in calculating our inspection grades is deficiencies. Deficiencies can be found on a nursing home's recent inspection reports. Nursing homes with higher scores in this category most likely dodged the most severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. While this place had a few minor dings on its inspection report, it had zero severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are labeled as categories G through L. This tells you that the government inspectors didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient health or safety. Remember that deficiency-free inspections are uncommon in this industry.

The last area we assessed is long-term care. This facility was awarded a better than average long-term care rating in our assessment, with a grade of C. Even though this is not nearly as elite as many of its other grades, this is still a respectable score for this area. Long-term care ratings are based on the nursing home's volume of nursing care. This includes a vast range of personal care services, ranging from help with activities of daily living to routine healthcare services. After assessing the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we next considered the facility's vaccination statistics. It does not appear that this facility provided information about vaccinations. Finally, this facility excelled at keeping its residents out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.