Palomar Heights Post Acute Rehab

The primary reason this facility received a decent overall score is its impeccable inspections in recent years. We awarded it one of our better grades in that category, with a grade of A-. This is a much better score than the place's overall grade, which was decent but certainly not elite. We take several aspects of a facility's inspection report into consideration in calculating these inspection grades. One key factor is deficiencies. It should be noted that the severity of deficiencies is usually more meaningful than the quantity of deficiencies, as some deficiencies are quite minor. This facility was assessed 2 deficiencies on its inspection report, but fortunately none of the deficiencies were considered to be severe deficiencies. This means that the government inspectors did not deem any of these deficiencies to pose an immediate threat to resident health or safety. Remember that deficiency-free inspection reports are uncommon in this industry.

This nursing home's next most favorable category was short-term care. We awarded it a grade of B- in this area. This is essentially a slightly below average grade in this area. In our short-term care rating, we attempt to create a meaningful barometer for rehabilitation services. In doing so, we assess a facility's levels of highly-skilled nursing services, including both registered nurses and physical therapy, as well as occupational therapy. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like this facility provided information about its staffing of registered nurses or physical therapists. The last measure we considered in this category is the number of patients who were able to leave the nursing home and return home. We discovered that just 5.8 percent of this facility's residents were able to return home, which is actually below average.

This facility's next best category grade came in the area of nursing. In that category, we gave this nursing home a grade of B-. Nursing scores are based in large part on nurse staffing levels. This nursing home provided just 0.4 hours of nursing care per patient per day. This figure is significantly below the national average. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this place surprisingly fared better in some of the quality-based metrics we assessed. In fact, it scored well in terms of avoiding major falls and pressure ulcers. We consider these areas to be reliable indicators of the quality of nursing care. In some cases, the quality of nursing care is just as important as the quantity of hours of care provided.

Our last category is long-term care, where we awarded this nursing home a grade of C in that area. If you are seeking anything other than rehabilitation, you should take a close look at each nursing home's long-term care ratings. After looking at the amount of care provided by nurses aids and other staff, we then looked at the nursing home's vaccination data. We were somewhat surprised to discover that this nursing home vaccinated a relatively low 73.30677 percent of its patients for pneumonia. Nevertheless, this facility was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had only 0.01 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.