Plum Tree Care Center

To pair with its strong overall grade, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A+ for its nursing grade. Short-term care grades are critical for individuals needing rehabilitation. Rehabilitation typically requires higher levels of skilled nursing. This means a wide spectrum of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and occupational therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it appear that this nursing home has registered nurses on staff. Not all nursing homes employs these types of nurses. On the other hand, according to the information this nursing home provided, it does not look like the facility employs physical therapists. The last statistic we considered in this area is the number of residents who were able to leave the nursing home and return home. We discovered that 5.9 percent of this facility's patients were able to return home.

To complement its strong performance in other areas, we awarded this nursing home a grade of A- for our inspections rating. Our nursing grade is primarily associated with a nursing home's nurse staffing. This nursing home provides 0.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, we also assessed several nursing quality measures and this nursing home excelled in some of these areas. With less than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed as well as any facility California in this category. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be avoided by providing better nursing care, such as by having a policy of turning patients even once per day.

This nursing home has received near flawless inspections in recent years. We awarded them an A- in this category. Inspection grades account for several factors included in a nursing home's inspection report. One key criteria we rely on is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with better grades in this area usually have few severe deficiencies. While this nursing home had some deficiencies on its report, none of them were severe based on CMS' deficiency scale. We should point out that deficiency-free inspection reports are uncommon in this industry.

In the final category we assessed, this facility received an impressive grade grade of A- in our long-term care category. With this grade, the nursing home rounded out a straight A report card. When nursing homes receive this type of grade in long-term care it is a good sign for patient care and indicates that the facility is well-staffed with nurses aids. After looking at the volume of care provided by aids and other staff, we then analyzed the nursing home's vaccination record. This nursing home vaccinated 99.166664 percent of its residents against pneumonia, which is far higher than the average nursing home. Lastly, this facility was able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0.03 hospitalizations per 1,000 long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.