San Saba Rehabilitation

This nursing home received a strong overall score as described above, but we especially wanted to point out its nearly flawless health inspections in recent years. We awarded them an A+ in this area. Our inspection grades weigh several factors found on a facility's inspection report. One key criteria we rely on is the quantity and severity of deficiencies. Facilities with higher grades in this category usually have few of these severe deficiencies. This facility was hit with 3 deficiencies on its inspection report, but fortunately none were considered severe. This tells you that the government inspectors didn't deem any of the deficiencies to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

This facility was awarded impressive scores in the category of long-term care as well. Indeed, we awarded it one of our most elite grades in that area with a score of A-. Nursing homes that do well in this category typically are well-staffed and offer extensive hands on care to patients. Once we finished looking at the volume of care provided by nurses, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination statistics. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its patients for pneumonia, which is very impressive. Pneumonia is often a life or death ailment for nursing home residents so we strongly prefer when a facility does not take any chances. Clearly, this facility is doing something right in this area as it also excelled at keeping its patients out of the hospital. Indeed, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is a remarkably low figure.

Turning to the category of nursing care, this facility didn't perform quite as well in this area as some of the categories discussed above. Nevertheless, a grade of C in this category is by no means a bad score. In computing our nursing grades, we assess both nursing hours and the skill levels of those nurses. This place provides only 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident on a daily basis. This is a somewhat concerning figure as it is well below average. Lastly, we also assessed some nursing quality measures. While this facility got docked a bit for nursing hours per resident, it excelled in some of these quality measures. With fewer than five percent of its residents sustaining pressure ulcers, it performed very well in this area. This is typically an indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can frequently be avoided by offering better nursing care, such as having a protocol of turning a patient at least once a day.

The next area we rated was short-term care, was this facility's weakest category. We awarded this facility a D in this category. This really is one of just a few dings on an otherwise strong report card. In the area of short-term care, we endeavor to qualify indicators of a nursing home's rehabilitation services. We analyze a facility's skilled nursing services, including the ones performed by registered nurses and physical and occupational therapists. Unfortunately, we learned that this place offers less physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most nursing homes. Finally, we assessed the percentage of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that just 0 percent of this facility's residents returned home.