Los Gatos Meadows Geriatric Hospital

On top of performing well overall, this facility also received nearly flawless government inspections. Therefore, it earned one of our best grades in that category with an A+. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in determining our inspection scores. One of those factors is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of the deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the number of deficiencies, as some of these can be relatively minor. This place received 2 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe deficiencies. This indicates that CMS did not consider any of the deficiencies an imminent risk to resident health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

On the list of its many high-end scores, this facility received an excellent short-term care score. In fact, we gave it a grade of A in that area. Our short-term care grade is generally used to grade a nursing home's rehabilitation services. In order to provide good rehabilitation services, nursing homes generally need to offer higher levels of highly skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes registered nurses, physical therapists, speech therapists and other types of therapists. It doesn't look like this facility provided data regarding its registered nurse or physical therapy staffing. The final item we assessed in this category is the percentage of patients who were able to leave the facility and return home. We found that 6.8 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home.

We also want to note the fact that this nursing home received a high-end score of A in our long-term care category. When facilities receive this kind of grade in long-term care it is a good sign for resident care and indicates that the nursing home is well-staffed with nurses and aids. On top of considering the volume of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility gave the vaccine to 100 percent of its residents, which is significantly higher than most nursing homes. Lastly, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. It had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

Turning to our final area, this nursing home was given a highly favorable nursing rating. In fact, we awarded it a grade of B+ in this area, wrapping up one of our better report cards. When calculating a nursing home's nursing grade, we look at the number of hours nurses are caring for patients and the skill levels of those nurses. This nursing home provides 0 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also assessed certain nursing quality-based metrics in computing our nursing grades. These include minimizing residents' pressure ulcers and major falls. We look at these data points as reliable indicators of the quality of nursing care provided, since better care tends to reduce these problems.