New Mexico State Veterans Home

The main reason this turned out to be a great nursing home is that it received an elite nursing grade. In fact, we gave this facility a grade of A+. Our nursing rating focuses on the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. We factor in both the levels of skill of the nurses and the amount of time spent with patients. This facility provided 0.7 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality measures 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 nursing home the nation in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be prevented by offering better nursing care, such as having a policy of moving a patient at least once a day.

We also want to note that this facility received a strong short-term care grade. In fact, it received one of our most favorable grades in that category with a score of A. Our short-term care grades are based in part on the nursing home's quantity of skilled highly skilled professionals. This includes a broad spectrum of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and speech therapists, not to mention other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility employs registered nurses. Not all nursing homes employs these skilled professionals. However, according to the information they provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last datapoint we looked at in this area is the number of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. We discovered that 0 percent of this nursing home's residents returned home.

We also awarded this facility an impressive grade in long-term care. This facility earned a grade of B in this category, which happens to be one of our better scores. Facilities that excel in this category typically are well-staffed and provide extensive hands on care to patients. On top of looking at the quantity of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility administered the vaccine to 100 percent of its patients, which is more than the average nursing home. Finally, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

The last category we assessed was inspections. This nursing home did not receive favorable government inspections in recent years. In fact, we gave it an F in this category. This dragged down this facility's overall score significantly. For facilities with bad inspection scores, you should focus on any severe deficiencies found on their recent inspection reports. This nursing home had 3 deficiencies on its inspection report. The only positive thing we can say is that none of the deficiencies were in the categories that suggest they posed a risk to resident health or safety. Finally, we would like to draw your attention to the fact that this place was assessed large government fines in recent years amounting to over $100,000. This typically suggests that a facility's poor performance spanned several years.