Northgate Postacute Care

Northgate Postacute Care is one of eight available facilities located in San Rafael, California. We gave this nursing home a C overall, which isn't a bad score. This is comparable with the city grade in San Rafael, which is a B-. As far as we can see, this nursing home ought to be a good fit for quite a few people. You also may want to review this facility's category grades below. Long-term care grades are discussed in the next section.

We awarded this nursing home an A- for our long-term care score. This score is more impressive than its overall score. Long-term care scores of this caliber generally require both around the clock care from nurses and aids, as well as quality routine medical care. In addition to assessing the quantity of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This facility vaccinated 100 percent of its residents, which is more than the vast majority of nursing homes. This facility was also able to keep its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 1.27 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a significantly lower hospitalization rate than the average nursing home.

One of the other reasons we graded this nursing home so highly is that it received a very impressive nursing rating. In that category, we awarded this nursing home an B-. We analyzed the qualifications of nurses working for the nursing home, as well as the number of hours those nurses spent with residents, in determining our grade in this category. Based on the CMS data, this nursing home offers 3.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Lastly, we also factored in some quality-based assessments. This place fared well in some of the quality-based metrics we assessed. For example, in terms of the percentage of its patients suffering from pressure ulcers, this place performed better than the national average. This is often a good indicator that a facility has sufficient quality controls in place. Pressure ulcers can generally be avoided with better nursing care.

This facility received somewhat favorable health inspections in recent years. We awarded them a decent score in that area, with a grade of C. We weigh several aspects of a nursing home's inspection report in computing these inspection grades. One critical factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of these deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some end up being quite minor. This nursing home was assessed 4 deficiencies on its inspection report, but fortunately none were in any of the categories labeled G through L. This means it avoided the more ominous categories of deficiencies. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

The next category we graded was short-term care. For this category, we gave this facility a C. In determining our short-term care grades, we look at the facility's levels of highly skilled nursing, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists speech therapists and other types of therapists. This score is considered to be a meaningful assessment of the nursing home's rehabilitation services. 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. The final metric we looked at in this category is the number of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return to the community. This place was respectable in this metric with 46.2 percent of its residents returning home.