Retama Manor Nursing Center/Edinburg

On top of being a quality facility overall, this facility also excelled in the area of inspections, where it earned an A+. Few nursing homes fared better in this area. Inspection grades weigh a host of factors included in a nursing home's inspection reports. One of the most important criteria we weigh heavily is the number and severity of deficiencies. Places with better grades in this category generally have very few of these severe deficiencies. This facility was assessed 5 deficiencies on its inspection report, but we were relieved to see that none were considered to be severe. This means that the inspectors did not deem any of these deficiencies to be an imminent risk to resident health or safety. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

We also awarded this facility a grade of A- for our long-term care grade. Facilities that do well in long-term care tend to provide residents with better supervision and stay on top of routine healthcare services. In addition to assessing the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we looked at the percentage of residents vaccinated against pneumonia. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its residents, which is very impressive. Pneumonia is too frequently a life threatening ailment for nursing home patients so we prefer when a facility doesn't take any chances. Lastly, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. Indeed, it had only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low number.

The third highest area we awarded this facility in any area came in the category of short-term care, where we gave it a B-. In determining our short-term care ratings, we scrutinize the facility's levels of highly skilled nursing services, which includes registered nurses, physical therapists occupational therapists and other licensed professionals. This rating is typically a fair measure of a facility's ability to rehabilitate patients. It does not look like this nursing home submitted information about its staffing of registered nurses or physical therapists. The last statistic we assessed in this category is the percentage of residents who were able to return home from the facility. We found that just 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home.

The next area we assessed is nursing, which is this nursing home's least impressive area. We gave this nursing home a D in that category. Naturally, this category pulled down the facility's overall profile to some degree. Nursing scores are mostly based on a nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This facility averaged just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident each day. This is well below average. Lastly, we also looked at a few quality-based metrics in determining our nursing grades. This nursing home was above average in two of the major areas we focus on, with solid marks for avoiding major falls and pressure ulcers. These metrics are often reliable indicators of the quality of nursing care provided.